Musician Goldie Boutilier performed at some revered North American music festivals this year, but a promising start to her music career a decade ago with a major label in California turned sour and saw her doing sex work and struggling with drug and alcohol use.

The generosity of Nova Scotians outranks all others in Canada, according to CanadaHelps, a self-funded charity that connects donors to other charities around the country.

Eighty-eight-year-old Lorne Collie has been making musical instruments for more than three decades, creations that dazzle for their unique materials as much as their sound.

There’s a hefty bass guitar and a cello made of moose antlers, a baseball bat violin, ukuleles made of cookie tins, and guitars fashioned from pitch forks, a shovel, and a rake.

His personal favourites? A frying pan mandolin and a banjo made of a motorcycle tire rim, covered by stretched deerskin painted by his late wife.

“When people wanted to buy them, I always said No,” Collie said from his home outside the tiny and remote Manitoba community of Hilbre, about 230 kilometres northwest of Winnipeg.

“I wasn’t hurting for money, but what I was afraid of is that if I started selling them, I would be working myself to death to try to keep up to the orders.”

Collie said he once turned down an offer of $35,000 for a moose antler electric guitar.

Now things have changed.

“That was the policy back then,” he said. “I’m 88 now and not as spry and lively as I used to be.”

With the help of his son James who lives in Hope, B.C., Collie is hoping to sell some of his collection. The electric bass guitar is on sale for $8,000, and the cello for $6,500.

Collie said he needs the funds to upgrade his older model electric car to one with better range and speed, so he can see his large family.

“I would like to and I do quite a bit of travelling. My wife has passed on and I’m alone. I’ve got 25 great grandchildren and they’re all in Alberta and B.C.,” Collie said. “I’ve got lots of reasons to drive.”

Collie said he first put the antler instruments up for sale this summer, but while there were a few inquiries from Vancouver “nobody came out to see them.”

“You really have to see them to appreciate them,” he said.

Collie’s instrument building began with a near-death experience that forced him to retire from his trade as a machinist.

He said he was “working tremendous, long hours at a high stress” job in the late 1980s, when he collapsed with a brain aneurysm that put him in a coma for more than a week.

“That was supposed to have killed me,” he said. “They wrote me off as dead.”

Collie said he woke up with a clear head, and after a friend challenged him to “put strings on a shovel,” he began making instruments from other odd, kitschy implements.

He said he walked into his workshop one day, saw a broken guitar on a workbench and a moose antler on another and “got the idea of putting them together.”

Friends on a nearby First Nations reserve and a brother-in-law who maintains a trapline found the antlers and gave them to him.

The first antler instrument, a guitar, “turned out very, very good.”

The antler doesn’t warp and it’s very strong, Collie said, adding that he’s had success with most materials, other than an ill-fated attempt at making a lap steel guitar from a snowshoe.

The moose antler bass guitar weighs nearly eight kilograms, he said, but it’s “one of the most comfortable” instruments he’s made.

“And it sounds good, just like a good solid-body electric guitar,” Collie said.

Collie isn’t done yet with his unique instruments. He said he also wants to make a Celtic harp, but he needs “fairly large antler with quite a deep curve in it.”

“I’m not much of a musician,” he said. “I can play any of them good enough to know if they’re working, but I’m not a performer.”

He likes the idea of a group of musicians getting together to do a “talent show” with his creations, but if he can sell the antler bass and cello, he’d be happy “just to know they’re being enjoyed.”

“I’ve been making stuff my entire life,” he said. “I was born for making things, that’s for sure.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Dec. 21, 2024.

Darryl Greer, The Canadian Press

TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — The Israeli military says a rocket fired from Yemen hit an area of Tel Aviv overnight, leaving 16 people slightly injured by shattered glass from nearby windows.

A further 14 people sustained minor injuries as they rushed to shelters when air raid sirens sounded before the projectile hit just before 4 a.m. Saturday, the military said.

The attack comes less than two days after a series of Israeli airstrikes on Yemen’s Houthi rebel-held capital, Sanaa, and port city of Hodeida killed at least nine people. The Israeli strikes were in response to a Houthi attack in which a long-range missile hit an Israeli school building. The Houthis also claimed a drone strike targeting an unspecified military target in central Israel on Thursday.

The Israeli military says the Iran-backed Houthis have launched more than 200 missiles and drones during the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza. The Houthis have also been attacking shipping in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden — attacks they say won’t stop until there is a ceasefire in Gaza.

The Israeli strikes Thursday caused “considerable damage” to the Houthi-controlled Red Sea ports “that will lead to the immediate and significant reduction in port capacity,” United Nations spokesman Stephane Dujarric said. The port at Hodeida has been key for food shipments into Yemen in its decade-long civil war.

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said both sides’ attacks risk further escalation in the region and undermine U.N. mediation efforts.

The Associated Press

LYONS, Ga. (AP) — Twisted equipment and snapped tree limbs still litter Chris Hopkins’ Georgia farm more than two months after Hurricane Helene made its deadly march across the South.

An irrigation sprinkler system about 300 feet (92 meters) long lay overturned in a field, its steel pipes bent and welded joints broken. The mangled remains of a grain bin sat crumpled by a road. On a Friday in early December, Hopkins dragged burly limbs from the path of the tractor-like machine that picks his cotton crop six rows at a time.

“I have wrestled with lots of emotions the past two months,” said Hopkins, who also grows corn and peanuts in rural Toombs County, about 75 miles (120 kilometers) west of Savannah. “Do we just get through this one and quit? Do we build back? It is emotionally draining.”

Hopkins is among farmers across the South who are still reeling from Helene’s devastation. The storm made landfall in Florida on Sept. 26 as a major Category 4 storm and then raced north across Georgia and neighboring states.

Experts estimate the cost to farmers, timber growers and other agribusinesses from Florida to Virginia will reach more than $10 billion. The toll includes ravaged crops, uprooted timber, wrecked farm equipment and mangled chicken houses, as well as indirect costs such as lost productivity at cotton gins and poultry processing plants.

For cotton growers like Hopkins, Helene hit just as the fall harvest was starting. Many put most cleanup on hold to try to salvage what remained of their crops.

`Staggering’ losses to cotton, pecans and fall vegetables

Georgia farmers suffered storm losses of at least $5.5 billion, according to an analysis by the University of Georgia. In North Carolina, a state agency calculated farmers suffered $3.1 billion in crop losses and recovery costs after Helene brought record rainfall and flooding. Separate economic analyses of farm damage tallied losses of up to $630 million in Virginia, $452 million in South Carolina and $162 million in Florida.

Hopkins figures he lost half the cotton on his 1,400 acres (560 hectares).

“We were at the most vulnerable stage we could be,” he said. “The lint was open and fluffy and hanging there, waiting to be defoliated or picked. About 50% of the harvestable lint ended up on the ground.”

Even with insurance, Hopkins said, he won’t recoup an estimated $430,000 in losses from his cotton crop alone. That doesn’t include the cost of debris removal, repairing or replacing damaged machinery and the loss of two small pecan orchards uprooted by the storm.

The storm ripped through blooming cotton fields, pecan orchards laden with nuts and fields where fall vegetables like cucumbers and squash awaited picking. Hundreds of large poultry houses used to raise thousands of chickens at a time got destroyed.

Farmers far from Helene’s center weren’t spared, as tropical-storm force winds reached outward up to 310 miles (499 kilometers).

“It was staggering,” said Timothy Coolong, a University of Georgia horticulture professor. “This may be just too much for some folks.”

Helene was one of the deadliest U.S. hurricanes in nearly two decades, killing more than 200 people. It left more than 100,000 homes damaged or destroyed across the South.

Will aid to farmers come soon enough?

Georgia’s government in November diverted $100 million that had been set aside for construction projects or paying off existing debt to fund emergency loans to farmers and cleanup in Helene’s aftermath. Republican Gov. Brian Kemp has made additional storm relief a priority for the upcoming legislative session.

But Georgia’s constitution prohibits using state funds to give direct disaster aid to individuals and private businesses.

In Congress, a new plan late Friday that would temporarily fund federal operations included billions in disaster aid to farmers.

“We need help, but we need it quick,” said Jeffrey Pridgen, a fifth-generation farmer who raises chickens in south Georgia’s Coffee County.

Pridgen operated a dozen poultry houses, each large enough to raise up to 20,000 chickens at a time. Helene destroyed four of them, along with thousands of chickens. Only one of Pridgen’s houses remains in working condition, the others having been badly damaged.

Pridgen said new chicken houses will cost about $450,000 apiece. Because most of his were decades old, he expects insurance to cover just half the cost.

“I was looking at retirement, but I lost my retirement and my income in one day,” said Pridgen, 62. “It’ll be two years before we get fully operational again. I’m basically starting over.”

‘Everybody lost something’

Georgia’s poultry industry took an estimated $683 million hit, with farmers having to rebuild about 300 chicken houses and repair hundreds more.

The poultry processing plant that relies on Pridgen and other storm-impacted farmers for chickens is now operating just four days per week, he said.

“Now for at least a year, perhaps a little bit longer, we’re in rebuilding mode,” said Mike Giles, president of the Georgia Poultry Federation. “That affects production in an area for an extended period of time.”

Helene’s devastation shouldn’t have much impact on consumer prices because crops grown elsewhere can make up for most shortages, said Michael Adjemian, a University of Georgia professor of agricultural economics. Pecans are one possible exception. Georgia is responsible for roughly one-third of U.S. production.

“In most cases, even a terrible storm like this is going to have a relatively small impact,” Adjemian said. “And maybe it’s not even noticeable, depending on the product.”

Helene cost Georgia cotton farmers roughly one-third of their crop, with direct and indirect losses valued at $560 million. Some were still recovering from Hurricane Michael in 2018.

Cotton growers also were facing low prices this harvest season of around 70 cents per pound (0.45 kilograms), said Taylor Sills, executive director of the Georgia Cotton Commission. That meant they needed a big yield to turn any profit.

“Times were awful, and then they got hit by a hurricane,” Sills said. “There are people who lost everything and there are people who didn’t. But everybody lost something.”

Russ Bynum, The Associated Press

YAKUTAT, Alaska (AP) — Forget the open-air sleigh overloaded with gifts and powered by flying reindeer.

Santa and Mrs. Claus this week took supersized rides to southeast Alaska in a C-17 military cargo plane and a camouflaged Humvee, as they delivered toys to the Tlingit village of Yakutat, northwest of Juneau.

The visit was part of this year’s Operation Santa Claus, an outreach program of the Alaska National Guard to largely Indigenous communities in the nation’s largest state. Each year, the Guard picks a village that has suffered recent hardship — in Yakutat’s case, a massive snowfall that threatened to buckle buildings in 2022.

“This is one of the funnest things we get to do, and this is a proud moment for the National Guard,” Maj. Gen. Torrence Saxe, adjutant general of the Alaska National Guard, said Wednesday.

Saxe wore a Guard uniform and a Santa hat that stretched his unit’s dress regulations.

The Humvee caused a stir when it entered the school parking lot, and a buzz of “It’s Santa! It’s Santa!” pierced the cold air as dozens of elementary school children gathered outside.

In the school, Mrs. Claus read a Christmas story about the reindeer Dasher. The couple in red then sat for photos with nearly all of the 75 or so students and handed out new backpacks filled with gifts, books, snacks and school supplies donated by the Salvation Army. The school provided lunch, and a local restaurant provided the ice cream and toppings for a sundae bar.

Student Thomas Henry, 10, said while the contents of the backpack were “pretty good,” his favorite item was a plastic dinosaur.

Another, 9-year-old Mackenzie Ross, held her new plush seal toy as she walked around the school gym.

“I think it’s special that I have this opportunity to be here today because I’ve never experienced this before,” she said.

Yakutat, a Tlingit village of about 600 residents, is in the lowlands of the Gulf of Alaska, at the top of Alaska’s panhandle. Nearby is the Hubbard Glacier, a frequent stop for cruise ships.

Some of the National Guard members who visited Yakutat on Wednesday were also there in January 2022, when storms dumped about 6 feet (1.8 meters) of snow in a matter of days, damaging buildings.

Operation Santa started in 1956 when flooding severely curtailed subsistence hunting for residents of St. Mary’s, in western Alaska. Having to spend their money on food, they had little left for Christmas presents, so the military stepped in.

This year, visits were planned to two other communities hit by flooding. Santa’s visit to Circle, in northeastern Alaska, went off without a hitch. Severe weather prevented a visit to Crooked Creek, in the southwestern part of the state, but Christmas was saved when the gifts were delivered there Nov. 16.

“We tend to visit rural communities where it is very isolated,” said Jenni Ragland, service extension director with the Salvation Army Alaska Division. “A lot of kids haven’t traveled to big cities where we typically have Santa and big stores with Christmas gifts and Christmas trees, so we kind of bring the Christmas program on the road.”

After the C-17 Globemaster III landed in Yakutat, it quickly returned to Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson in Anchorage, an hour away, because there was nowhere to park it at the village’s tiny airport. Later it returned to pick up the Christmas crew.

Santa and Mrs. Claus, along with their tuckered elves, were seen nodding off on the flight back.

Mark Thiessen, The Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden secured the 235th judicial confirmation of his presidency Friday, an accomplishment that exceeds his predecessor’s total by one after Democrats put extra emphasis on the federal courts following Donald Trump’s far-reaching first term, when he filled three seats on the Supreme Court.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., teed up votes on two California district judges, and they were likely to be the last judicial confirmations this year before Congress adjourns and makes way for a new, Republican-led Senate.

The confirmation of Serena Raquel Murillo to be a district judge for the Central District of California broke Trump’s mark. Come next year, Republicans will look to boost Trump’s already considerable influence on the makeup of the federal judiciary in his second term.

Biden and Senate Democrats placed particular focus on adding women, minorities and public defenders to the judicial rank. About two-thirds of Biden’s appointees are women and a solid majority of appointees are people of color. The most notable appointee was Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, the first African American woman to serve on the nation’s highest court.

“Prior to our effort, the number of women on the federal bench was really diminished. It was overwhelmingly white males,” said Sen. Dick Durbin, the Democratic chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee. “We consciously moved forward to bring more women to the bench, and believe me, we had a great talent pool to work with. So I think it’ll enhance the image of the court and its work product to bring these new judges on.”

Biden also placed an emphasis on bringing more civil rights lawyers, public defenders and labor rights lawyers to expand the professional backgrounds of the federal judiciary. More than 45 appointees are public defenders and more than two dozen served as civil rights lawyers.

While Biden did get more district judges confirmed than Trump, he had fewer higher-tier circuit court appointments than Trump — 45 compared to 54 for Trump. And he got one Supreme Court appointment compared with three for Trump. Republicans, much to Democrats’ frustration, filled Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s seat on the court the week before the 2020 presidential election. Ginsburg had passed away in September.

Democrats also faced the challenge of confirming nominees during two years of a 50-50 Senate. Rarely a week went by in the current Congress when Schumer did not tee up votes on judicial confirmations as liberal groups urged Democrats to show the same kind of urgency on judges that Republicans exhibited under Trump.

Some Senate Republicans were harshly critical of Biden’s choices. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, said talk of diversity did not extend to the views of the nominees.

“One of the consequences of the age of Trump is that it drove Democrats insane and it drove them to the extreme left, so they put people on the bench who were selected because they were extreme partisans,” Cruz said.

Liberal-leaning advocacy groups said they are delighted with the number of judges Democrats secured, but even more so with the quality of the nominees. They said diversity in personal and professional backgrounds improves judicial decision-making, helps build public trust and inspires people from all walks of life to pursue legal careers.

“For our federal judiciary to actually deliver equal justice for all, it really has to be for all, and that is one reason why we certainly applaud this administration for prioritizing both professional but also demographic diversity,” said Lena Zwarensteyn, senior director of the fair courts program at The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights.

Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, and the next chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said Democrats showed newfound resolve on judicial confirmations.

“They learned a lesson from the first Trump administration,” Grassley said. “Paying attention to the number of judges you get and the type of judges you put on the court is worth it.”

Part of the urgency from Democrats came as they watched the nation’s highest court overturn abortion protections, eliminate affirmative action in higher education and weaken the federal government’s ability to protect the environment, public health and workplace safety through regulations. The cases showed that the balance of power in Washington extends to the judicial branch.

Trump will inherit nearly three dozen judicial vacancies, but that number is expected to rise because of Republican-appointed judges who held off on retirement in hopes that a Republican would return to office and pick their replacements.

Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., acknowledged that the sense of accomplishment for Democrats is muted somewhat knowing that Trump will have another term to continue shaping the federal judiciary.

“I’m not ready to uncork the champagne just because we’ve done some really good work over the last four years,” Blumenthal said. “We need to be prepared to work, hope for the best and try to defeat nominees who are simply unqualified. We have our work cut out for us. The prospects ahead are sobering.”

Grassley promised that he’ll work to best Biden’s number.

“Let me assure you, by January 20th of 2029, Trump will be bragging about getting 240 judges,” Grassley said.

Kevin Freking, The Associated Press

Thousands of Christmas meals are being prepped in a north-end Halifax kitchen. They are being made by an organization that sends the meals to people in need from Halifax to as far away as Truro. Molly MacNaughton has the story.

The only daily TV news package to focus on Nova Scotians and their stories

LINCOLN CITY, Ore. (AP) — A sheriff in Oregon says he has contacted the FBI and is increasingly concerned about a letter circulating in his rural, coastal community asking people to write down the license plate numbers of possible immigrants.

The Lincoln County Sheriff’s Office issued a news release on Thursday condemning the letters that have appeared across the county, describing them as divisive. Sheriff Curtis Landers told KPTV that he contacted federal authorities after receiving such a letter himself.

The letter tells the recipient to be on alert while sitting in their church parking lot or waiting in line to pick up their children at school, so as to write down the license plate numbers of cars believed to belong to immigrants who might lack permanent legal status.

The sheriff’s office said it was committed to upholding Oregon’s sanctuary law, which prohibits local police in most cases from inquiring about an individual’s immigration or citizenship status and sharing that information with federal authorities.

“We are encouraging our community members to do the right thing and use compassion as we encounter these types of messages,” the sheriff’s office said in its news release. “We strongly advise against engaging in activities such as those outlined in this letter, including collecting or sharing information about individuals based on their demographic or perceived immigration status.”

The Associated Press emailed the sheriff’s office on Friday, requesting comment and asking about the number and distribution method of the letters. When reached by phone, the sheriff’s office said Landers and its spokesperson were both out of the office and unable to respond to calls or emails that day.

Landers and the mayor of a small town in the county were among those who received copies of the letter in their mailboxes, KPTV reported.

In response to Trump’s vows to conduct mass deportations during his second term, advocacy groups across the country have hosted know-your-rights trainings to teach immigrants how to protect themselves and their loved ones. The trainings are underway in immigrant-friendly states including California and Illinois — which both enacted protections for immigrants in response to Trump’s focus on enforcement during his first administration — and those with more stringent laws affecting immigrants such as Florida.

Meanwhile, officials in a growing number of Republican-led states are proposing to give local law officers the power to arrest people who entered the country illegally, mirroring recent laws in Texas and elsewhere that have been placed on hold while courts weigh whether they unconstitutionally usurp federal authority.

Oregon became the first sanctuary state in 1987. Its law bars local and state police from participating in federal immigration enforcement without a judicial warrant, and also prohibits private immigration detention facilities from operating in the state.

Oregon’s sanctuary law has been updated and strengthened over the years, including in 2021, when the Legislature passed a measure creating a hotline for reporting violations of the law.

The Associated Press

SAN ANTONIO (AP) — A teacher at a San Antonio-area day care was killed and another employee and five toddlers were injured when a parent’s car accelerated into another vehicle in the parking lot and both vehicles crashed into a play area, authorities said.

The crash happened Thursday afternoon as parents were leaving a holiday performance at the preschool in Boerne. The teacher who died was Alexia Rosales, 22, authorities said.

The Bexar County Sheriff’s Office said a 23-year-old employee and five 1-year-olds were injured and taken to the hospital.

Sheriff Javier Salazar said a parent had put her children into her vehicle and suddenly accelerated for an unknown reason. He said her vehicle hit another in the parking lot, sending both vehicles through a fence and into an area where students were playing.

“It appears to be just a very tragic accident,” Salazar said.

The Associated Press

SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador (AP) — The Inter-American Court of Human Rights on Friday found El Salvador’s government responsible for violating the rights of a young Salvadoran woman who was denied an abortion of her anencephalic fetus in a country with a total ban on abortions.

The Costa Rica-based regional court said the government was responsible for obstetric violence, health violations and violating the physical integrity of the woman who had other health issues.

The court faulted a lack of protocols for high-risk pregnancies that led to her care being “bureaucratized and judicialized” in 2013. The woman, identified only as Beatriz, had requested and was denied an abortion early in her pregnancy. The fetus died hours after delivery.

The case had been brought by various organizations that demanded reparations for the woman’s family. She died after a traffic accident in 2017.

El Salvador’s government had argued that the medical team had autonomy to decide the best course of treatment and to preserve the life of the fetus.

____

Follow AP’s coverage of Latin America and the Caribbean at https://apnews.com/hub/latin-america

The Associated Press

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Minneapolis has softened an ordinance that prohibited the obstruction of entrances and driveways to abortion clinics after anti-abortion activists sued to challenge it on free-speech grounds.

The City Council this month quietly amended the ordinance to exclude constitutionally protected activities and agreed to pay the plaintiffs’ legal fees. Brian Gibson, chief executive officer of Pro-Life Action Ministries, said in an interview Friday that it amounted to an admission by the city that the law violated the freedom of speech.

“They were accepting fault for having violated our constitutional rights,” Gibson said.

Pro-Life Action Ministries sends “sidewalk counselors” to Planned Parenthood clinics in Minneapolis, St. Paul and elsewhere to try to dissuade people from having abortions. The ordinance, which the city enacted in 2022, was designed to protect patients of the Planned Parenthood clinic in the Uptown neighborhood from group members who would approach patients as they drove into the parking lot there. Gibson said they never blocked any entrances, but would try to get people to roll down their windows to take literature or talk.

Minneapolis was the only city the state with such a rule. Gibson said their most immediate concern when they filed the lawsuit in 2023 was to overturn the Minneapolis ordinance, but he acknowledged that they also wanted to prevent St. Paul, where there’s a much busier Planned Parenthood abortion clinic, from adopting something similar, which it never did.

The final judgement in favor of Pro-Life Action Ministries and three of its sidewalk counselors was filed in federal court Thursday.

Nationwide, several people have been convicted in the last year alone under the federal Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act, known as the FACE Act, or similar laws for physically blockading abortion clinic entrances. That includes activists in Detroit, New York City, Washington, D.C., and Mount Juliet, Tennessee, with some getting prison sentences as high as three to five years.

Toward the end of a long meeting that dealt mostly with other topics on Dec. 5, the Minneapolis City Council went into closed session to approve the agreement on legal fees, then returned in a very brief open session to unanimously exempt “any person or group engaging in conduct protected by the United States Constitution, the Minnesota Constitution or federal or Minnesota law.”

The law still prohibits physically blocking clinic entrances, and the city council’s vice president, Aisha Chughtai, said it’s consistent with the FACE Act.

She said the council wants to make sure people have access to heath care, including abortions, and voiced support for Planned Parenthood.

“We also want to be sure to provide very specific carveouts to ensure First Amendment rights are protected and ensure our local authority remains intact,” she told her colleagues at the meeting.

Chughtai did not immediately return messages seeking comment Friday. In response to a request for comment from the city attorney’s office, a city spokesperson supplied a statement that was nearly identical to what Chughtai said at the council meeting.

“They amended their ordinance and repaired the damage that was done there. It was total victory for the free-speech folks,” said Peter Breen, head of litigation for the conservative Thomas More Society, which represented the plaintiffs.

Planned Parenthood North Central States, which was not a party to the lawsuit, said in a statement that under the revision, “Patients continue to be protected from people blocking or obstructing the driveway or sidewalk.”

Breen said they’ll file a bill for the attorney’s fees soon, but that their last estimate was in the $600,000 range.

The Thomas More Society and allied groups are litigating similar restrictions nationwide, Breen said. They’ve asked a federal appeals court to block a similar ordinance in Clearwater, Florida. They’re also fighting similar measures in Westchester County of New York, San Diego, and Detroit.

And they’ve asked the U.S. Supreme Court to hear a challenge to an ordinance in Carbondale, Illinois. While the Supreme Court in 2000 affirmed a Colorado buffer zone requirement in a case called Hill v. Colorado, Breen noted that the high court more recently in its Dobbs decision, which struck down the constitutional right to abortion, criticized the Hill decision, saying its previous abortion rulings “have distorted First Amendment doctrines.”

Gibson said his members sometimes succeed in persuading people who come to the Minnesota clinics to cancel their abortions. He said they gather outside the St. Paul clinic nearly every day, and even go there Sundays when it’s closed just to pray. And he said they had a victory on their first day back outside the Minneapolis clinic when they approached a woman who had parked on the street.

“We had a baby saved,” he said. “A woman decided not to go through with her abortion appointment.”

Steve Karnowski, The Associated Press

CULPEPER, Va. (AP) — Three Black men who were lynched by mobs in Virginia during the 1800s and early 1900s have been declared innocent by a judge.

The Washington Post reported Friday that the men were Charles Allie Thompson, William Thompson and William Grayson. Each was killed in rural Culpeper County, which is about 75 miles (121 kilometers) from Washington.

Circuit Court Judge Dale B. Durrer on Monday found that the men “were and remain to this day innocent of their charges” because they were denied due process. Durrer did so at the request of prosecutor Russell L. Rabb III.

The ruling requires that documents about their treatment remain unsealed in court records for future generations to see.

“The best history helps us recognize the mistakes that we’ve made and the evil corners in which humanity can dwell,” Durrer said. “This discomfort causes us to learn and grow and harness the great collective power we have as a community.”

Zann Nelson, 76, is credited with making the ruling possible. She spent nearly 20 years researching the cases and pestering local officials.

“There are those who might say, ‘Well, it was so long ago, why is it so important?’” Nelson said. “Well, because it brings closure. Not just to families, but to the community.”

Charles Allie Thompson was lynched in 1918 after a white woman accused him of rape. He was held in jail for five days before a mob kidnapped and hung him.

In 1877, William Thompson was accused of raping an 11-year-old white girl. Three days after his arrest, 50 men dragged him out of jail and hung him from a poplar tree. It’s unknown if he was related to Charles Allie Thompson.

William Grayson, a free Black man, was charged with killing a white man in 1849. Virginia’s Supreme Court overturned two of his convictions following two trials because he was known to have been elsewhere. He was in jail facing a third trial when a “lawless mob” overpowered the sheriff and lynched Grayson.

The Associated Press

HRP spokesperson says police departments across Canada have similar vehicles.

The post Halifax Regional Police say armoured vehicle to only be used in ‘highest-risk situations’ appeared first on Halifax Examiner.

VANCOUVER — A British Columbia Supreme Court judge has sentenced a woman with an extensive criminal history of impersonating nurses in several provinces to four years in prison, tacking on more time to a sentence she is already serving in Ontario.

Associate Chief Justice Heather Holmes says the prospects of rehabilitation for Brigitte Cleroux “seem slim,” after she detailed the woman’s extensive criminal history across Canada.

Holmes says Cleroux has never been professionally qualified as a nurse, and her criminal record includes numerous convictions for fraud and forgery over the years in multiple provinces.

Holmes handed down her reasons for sentencing in a Vancouver courtroom today, ruling on three indictments for crimes Cleroux committed in Vancouver, Victoria and Surrey, B.C.

The judge says Cleroux’s impersonation of a real nurse, whose name is under a publication ban, caused patients who she treated to lose trust in the province’s medical system almost “without exception.”

Holmes says Cleroux’s “deep seated dishonesty” caused hundreds of patients emotional distress after they learned she wasn’t qualified, and sentenced her to another four years in prison to be served after she completes her sentence in Ontario for similar offences.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Dec. 20, 2024.

Darryl Greer, The Canadian Press

Instead of the predicted $467.4 million deficit, the forecast has been revised to $247.5 million in the red.

The post Nova Scotia budget update predicts smaller deficit appeared first on Halifax Examiner.

PARIS (AP) — France’s anti-terrorism court convicted 8 people on Friday of involvement in the beheading of teacher Samuel Paty in 2020.

Paty was killed near Paris days after showing his class cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad during a debate on free expression. The assailant, an 18-year-old Russian of Chechen origin, was shot to death by police.

Those convicted were accused, in some cases, of providing assistance to the perpetrator and, in others, of organizing a hate campaign online before the murder took place.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. AP’s earlier story follows below.

PARIS (AP) — Eight people accused of assisting an Islamic extremist who beheaded a French history teacher will hear the verdicts in their cases Friday, more than four years after the death of Samuel Paty outside his school.

Paty was killed near Paris on Oct. 16, 2020, days after showing his class cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad during a debate on free expression. The assailant, an 18-year-old Russian of Chechen origin, was shot to death by police.

Those who have been on trial on terrorism charges at a special court in Paris since the end of November are accused, in some cases, of providing assistance to the perpetrator and, in others, of organizing a hate campaign online before the murder took place.

The shocking death of the 47-year-old Paty left an imprint on France, and several schools are now named after him.

Prosecutors have requested sentences ranging from 18 months suspended imprisonment to 16 years in prison against the defendants. They include friends of assailant Abdoullakh Anzorov who allegedly helped purchase weapons for the attack and the father of a schoolgirl whose lies started the fatal spiral of events.

The national anti-terrorism prosecutor has asked the court to downgrade the offenses of four of the eight defendants, prompting ire from Paty’s family.

“It’s more than a disappointment,” Paty’s sister Mickaëlle told broadcaster TF1. “In a moment like this, it feels like one is fighting for nothing.”

The public prosecutor dropped the charge of complicity in favor of a lower charge of association with a terrorist enterprise against the two young men accused of providing the logistical support to the killer. He asked for 14 years in prison for Naïm Boudaoud and 16 years for Azim Epsirkhanov.

The attack occurred against a backdrop of protests in many Muslim countries and calls online for violence targeting France and the satirical French newspaper Charlie Hebdo. The newspaper had republished its caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad a few weeks before Paty’s death to mark the opening of the trial over deadly 2015 attacks on its newsroom by Islamic extremists.

The cartoon images deeply offended many Muslims, who saw them as sacrilegious. But the fallout from Paty’s killing reinforced the French state’s commitment to freedom of expression and its firm attachment to secularism in public life.

Much attention at the trial focused on Brahim Chnina, the Muslim father of a teenager who was 13 at the time and claimed that she had been excluded from Paty’s class when he showed the caricatures on Oct. 5, 2020.

Chnina, 52, sent a series of messages to his contacts denouncing Paty, saying that “this sick man” needed to be fired, along with the address of the school in the Paris suburb of Conflans Saint-Honorine. In reality, Chnina’s daughter had lied to him and had never attended the lesson in question.

Paty was giving a lesson mandated by the National Education Ministry on freedom of expression. He discussed the caricatures in this context, saying students who did not wish to see them could temporarily leave the classroom.

An online campaign against Paty snowballed, and 11 days after the lesson, Anzorov attacked the teacher with a knife as he walked home, and displayed the teacher’s head on social media. Police later shot Anzorov as he advanced toward them, armed.

Chnina is accused of alleged association with a terrorist enterprise for targeting the 47-year-old teacher through false information. The public prosecutor requested a sentence of 10 years’ imprisonment for him

His daughter was tried last year in a juvenile court and given an 18-month suspended sentence. Four other students at Paty’s school were found guilty of involvement and given suspended sentences; a fifth, who pointed out Paty to Anzorov in exchange for money, was given a 6-month term with an electronic bracelet.

Abdelhakim Sefrioui, who presented himself as a spokesperson for Imams of France although he had been dismissed from that role, is another key figure in the trial. He filmed a video in front of the school with the father of the student. He referred to the teacher as a “thug” multiple times and sought to pressure the school administration via social media. Prosecutors have requested a 12-year sentence for him.

Some of the defendants expressed regrets and claimed their innocence on the eve of the verdict. They did not convince Paty’s family.

“It’s something that really shocks the family,” lawyer Virginie Le Roy said. “You get the feeling that those in the box are absolutely unwilling to admit any responsibility whatsoever. Apologies are pointless, they won’t bring Samuel back, but explanations are precious to us. But, unfortunately I have to make a more than mixed assessment. We haven’t had many explanations of the facts.”

The Associated Press

TORONTO — A new report from RBC Economics says home affordability in Canada is improving, though strains remain.

The report says home ownership costs have eased for three consecutive quarters in Canada.

But RBC says home ownership costs as a percentage of median household income remain close to worst-ever levels, at 58.4 per cent in the third quarter of 2024.

The share of income a median Canadian household would need to cover mortgage payments, property taxes and utilities hit an all-time high of 63.8 per cent in the fourth quarter of 2023.

The report says in the third quarter of 2024, Vancouver, Victoria and Toronto saw the largest gains in home affordability when compared with other Canadian markets.

RBC says it expects further relief in 2025, thanks to anticipated rate cuts by the Bank of Canada and growing household incomes.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Dec. 20, 2024.

Companies in this story: (TSX:RY)

The Canadian Press

Favourable financial winds have again led to more revenue for Nova Scotia’s PC government, resulting in a shrinking deficit and more over-budget spending.

A storm expected to begin Friday night is already causing travel disruptions.

The Department of Communities, Culture, Tourism and Heritage is adding $38 million to the Nova Scotia Film and Television Production Incentive Fund to enhance the local industry.

Cape Breton University says it worked closely with the Nova Scotia government and other officials to ensure its unique condensed B.Ed. will meet quality standards.

Nova Scotia distillers are worried the temporary tax cut on some alcohol but not bottles of liquor will cut into sales during their normally best sales month.

The crew of the HMCS Charlottetown returned to Halifax on Friday, after a six-month deployment overseas for Operation Reassurance. About 250 families were reunited, just in time for the holidays.

DETROIT (AP) — In the waning days of President Joe Biden’s administration, the government’s highway safety agency is proposing voluntary safety guidelines for self-driving vehicles.

But a rule from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration putting the plan in place won’t be approved before the end of Biden’s term in January and likely will be left to whoever runs the agency under Republican Donald Trump.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk, whom Trump has named to co-lead a “Department of Government Efficiency” to cut costs and regulations, has floated the idea of him helping to develop safety standards for self-driving vehicles — even though the standards would affect Tesla’s automated driving systems.

At present there are no federal regulations that specifically govern autonomous vehicles, and any regulation is left to states. However, self-driving vehicles must meet broad federal safety standards that cover all passenger vehicles.

Under the agency’s proposal, released on Friday, automakers and autonomous vehicle companies could enroll in a program that would require safety plans and some data reporting for autonomous vehicles operating on public roads.

To apply companies would have to have independent assessments of their automated vehicle safety processes, and there would be requirements to report crashes and other problems with the vehicles.

Companies would have to give NHTSA information and data on the safety of the design, development and operations of the vehicles. The agency would decide whether to accept companies into the program.

But auto safety advocates say the plan falls short of needed regulation for self-driving vehicles. For instance, it doesn’t set specific performance standards set for the vehicles such as numbers and types of of sensors or whether the vehicles can see objects in low-visibility conditions, they said.

“This is a big bunch of nothing,” said Missy Cummings, director of the autonomy and robotics center at George Mason University and a former safety adviser to NHTSA. “It’ll be more of a completely useless paperwork drill where the companies swear they’re doing the right thing.”

Michael Brooks, executive director of the nonprofit Center for Auto Safety, said one of the few good things about the plan is that companies will have to report data on crashes and other problems. There have been reports that the Trump administration may want to scrap a NHTSA order that now requires autonomous vehicle companies to report crashes to the agency so it can collect data.

A message was left Friday seeking comment from the Trump transition team on crash reporting requirements.

Brooks said the incoming administration probably will want to put out its own version of the guidelines.

NHTSA will seek public comment on the plan for about 60 days, then the plan would have to wind its way through the federal regulatory process, which can take months or even years.

“It is important that ADS (Automated Driving System) technology be deployed in a manner that protects the public from unreasonable safety risk while at the same time allowing for responsible development of this technology, which has the potential to advance safety,” the proposed rule says.

The agency concedes that in the future, there may be a need for NHTSA to set minimum standards for self driving vehicle performance that are similar to mandatory safety standards that govern human-driven cars. But the agency says it now doesn’t have data and metrics to support those standards. The voluntary plan would help gather those, the proposal said.

Tom Krisher, The Associated Press

Derek Sprague has been selected as the next CEO at the PGA of America, the first time a club professional has been chosen to lead the organization in nearly 20 years.

Sprague, who spent 25 years at his hometown Malone Golf Club in New York, also becomes the first CEO to have served as PGA president. He takes over for Seth Waugh, the former Deutsche Bank Americas CEO who took over in 2018 until announcing his retirement earlier this year.

“To have a leader at the helm who knows every detail of the association and what it means to be a PGA of America Member will enable our association to succeed far into the future,” said Don Rea Jr., president of the PGA of America.

Sprague, a PGA of America member since 1993, most recently was general manager of the TPC Sawgrass. He was hired in 2018 after working at Liberty National in New Jersey, which hosted the Presidents Cup during his tenure.

In his final year of a two-year term as PGA president, Jimmy Walker won the 2016 PGA Championship at Baltusrol after a rain-soaked weekend that nearly carried over to Monday. Presenting the Wanamaker Trophy was his final act as president.

But his roots were in upstate New York, as the general manager and director of golf at Malone, where he ran every aspect of the club.

Sprague takes over at a time when golf is going through a big turnover in leadership. Martin Slumbers has retired as CEO of the R&A. Mollie Marcoux Samaan recently stepped down as commissioner of the LPGA. Guy Kinnings recently completed his first year as CEO of the European tour. And PGA Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan announced this week a search for a new position of CEO at the commercial PGA Tour Enterprises.

The PGA of America announced earlier this week it would pay its Ryder Cup players for the first time, a combination of $300,000 earmarked for charity and a $200,000 stipend.

“Throughout my career I have made it a priority to bring people together around a common cause,” Sprague said in a statement announcing his hire. “At a time of profound change in golf, there is also great opportunity for our association and our members.

“It is my task, alongside the officers and board, to elevate the profession of our more than 30,000 PGA of America golf professionals while ensuring the health of the association and its relationships within our industry.”

Jim Awtrey, the former Oklahoma golf coach and head professional at various Oklahoma golf clubs, was the first CEO of the PGA of America in 1993. He left in 2005 and was succeeded by broadcast executive Joe Steranka. He was followed by Pete Bevacqua, a USGA business officer who left to join NBC and now is athletic director at Notre Dame; and then Waugh.

Kerry Haigh, the chief championships officer for the PGA of America, had been acting as interim CEO since Waugh’s retirement in June.

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AP golf: https://apnews.com/hub/golf

Doug Ferguson, The Associated Press

LOS ANGELES (AP) — California regulators have approved a controversial proposal to delay the closure of the Aliso Canyon Natural Gas Facility, the site of the nation’s largest known methane leak, which forced thousands of families from their Los Angeles homes in 2015.

The California Public Utilities Commission on Thursday voted 4-0, with one commissioner recused, to approve a judge’s proposed decision that Aliso Canyon should remain open for the time being, the Southern California News Group reported.

But commissioners said the vote created a pathway to lowering or eliminating reliance on Aliso Canyon in future years by establishing a target for the level of demand for natural gas in Southern California that can be met without the need of the facility.

“This decision puts forward a path to the closure of Aliso Canyon that is achievable, realistic, and protective of families and businesses who are struggling to pay energy bills,” CPUC President Alice Reynolds said in a statement. “Huge progress is underway to bring online clean energy resources and drive down demand for natural gas-fired power plants.”

Opponents of the facility want it closed immediately. Craig Galanti, a Porter Ranch resident living near Aliso Canyon, was unhappy with the commission’s vote.

“Am I surprised? No. Am I disappointed? I’m exceedingly disappointed,” he told the news group. “The CPUC continues to support the best interests of the utilities at the expense of the community’s health and safety.”

The 2015 Aliso Canyon gas leak, which took four months to control, released more than 120,000 metric tons of methane and other gases into the atmosphere over communities in the San Fernando Valley.

Thousands of residents were forced to move out of their homes to escape a sulfurous stench and maladies including headaches, nausea and nosebleeds. SoCalGas and its parent company, Sempra Energy, agreed to pay up to $1.8 billion in settlements to more than 35,000 victims in 2021.

Last year, the company reached another settlement with the utilities commission, agreeing to pay more than $70 million to the Aliso Canyon Recovery Account to address the impacts from the leak on air quality and public health.

The Associated Press

MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) — The mother of a Black teenager who was fatally shot in Alabama this week said she believes her daughter was killed because of her transgender identity.

Cameron Thompson, 18, was shot several times just after midnight on Monday, and her body was found that afternoon a few blocks from her home, according to Tuscaloosa Violent Crimes Unit Captain Jack Kennedy.

The suspect and victim knew each other, according to Kennedy. Authorities reviewed Thompson’s online activity and found that she had posted on social media about the suspect’s sexual orientation before she was killed. Police have not revealed any details about these posts or the nature of their acquaintance.

The suspect is under 18 but is charged as an adult with Thompson’s murder. Under state law protecting the identity of juvenile defendants, other details have not been disclosed.

Thompson’s mother, Nikki Matthews-Cunningham, 37, believes that the shooting was motivated by Thompson’s identity.

“Of course” it was a hate crime, she told The Associated Press on Thursday. If it was a non-transgender girl who “said something about him on social media, he wouldn’t have lured her out of her home and killed her. But because my child was transgender, that’s why he did it.”

“I hate this happened to her, all because of her choice of wanting to be who she was. That’s the only reason she is dead,” she said.

The legal definition of a hate crime varies widely across different states. Alabama is one of nine states that don’t recognize sexual orientation, gender or gender identity in the legal classification of a hate crime, according to the Department of Justice. Thirty-two states include sexual orientation in their hate crime definition. Only 15 include gender identity.

Thompson is the second known transgender person to be fatally shot this year in Alabama, according to the Human Rights Campaign. The first was Tayy Thomas, a 17-year-old Black transgender teenager shot in Mobile, Alabama in May. The man charged with Thomas’ death is described by her family as a long-term romantic partner, according to AL.com.

At least 36 transgender people have died from violence over a 12-month period ending in November, the Human Rights Campaign said in its annual report, released on the Transgender Day of Remembrance. More than half were Black transgender women.

“Cameron’s death is not just a profound loss for her family and loved ones — it is a heartbreaking and unjust loss for the entire transgender community in Alabama and beyond,” said Carmarion D. Anderson-Harvey, the campaign’s Alabama director. “Her life mattered. Her dreams, her light, and her limitless potential were stolen far too soon. Law enforcement must conduct a thorough, transparent investigation and find some measure of justice for Cameron’s loved ones.”

Thompson was intelligent and ambitious, and “lit up a room when she walked in,” her mother said. She had planned to attend college and move to New York City.

“She was just starting her life,” Matthews-Cunningham said.

Thompson earned her high school diploma this year through an alternative jobs training program. She transferred there after classmates and some staff at her public school complained about her using the women’s restroom and refused to use pronouns that aligned with her gender identity, Matthews-Cunningham said.

“She struggled with people not wanting to accept her for who she was. But she was such a good person,” Matthews-Cunningham said.

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Safiyah Riddle is a corps member for The Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.

Safiyah Riddle, The Associated Press

CAIRO (AP) — Even with hopes running high, so much can go wrong when a country ousts a longtime dictator and tries to start anew. The Middle Eastern and North African nations that attempted to transition to democracy in recent years can attest to that.

Now it’s Syria’s turn to try to get it right.

It’s hard to draw lessons from the experiences of Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Yemen and Sudan since the wave of Arab Spring uprisings that began in 2011, as each country’s dynamics are different, But there are common themes.

In some cases, “the Revolution” was lost when armed factions battled it out for power or an ambitious would-be strongman emerged. In others, the miliary refused to cede control to civilians or foreign countries fueled conflicts by backing one side or another with money and weapons.

Questions must be asked before major decisions are made that can spark a destabilizing backlash: How do you deal with the old police state — purge or compromise? What do you do first, hold elections or write a constitution? And how do you fix a crippled economy riddled with corruption?

So far, Syria’s transition has been surprisingly smooth. But it’s only been two weeks since President Bashar Assad was toppled, and many of those same dangers lurk in the background.

The insurgents who ousted Assad are rooted in extremist Islamist ideology, and though they have vowed to create a pluralist system, it isn’t clear how or whether they plan to share power.

Other armed factions — or even remnants of Assad’s feared security forces — could lash out. And it remains to be seen whether the Kurds, who hold autonomous rule in the east, will be brought back into the fold, especially when Turkey fiercely opposes the main Kurdish faction.

Groups such as the Alawites, to whom Assad’s family belongs, fear being squeezed out of any role, or worse, being targeted for revenge.

Here’s a look at the power dynamics in some of these other countries:

Yemen

Protests forced Yemen’s Ali Abdullah Saleh to resign in November 2011, ending his 33-year rule. Under a deal brokered by Gulf countries, Saleh received immunity and handed his powers to his vice president, Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi.

Hadi was to serve as caretaker president for two years, during which a new constitution would be written, leading eventually to elections. But Saleh, who remained in the capital, Sanaa, allied himself with Houthi rebels based in the north — his longtime enemy — in a bid to regain power.

Backed by Saleh’s loyalists, the Houthis seized Sanaa and much of the populated center of the country. Hadi and his government fled south, where they are based in the city of Aden and control southern and much of eastern Yemen.

A Saudi-led coalition of Arab countries launched a bombardment campaign aimed at restoring Hadi’s government. Since then, Yemen has been torn by civil war that has killed more than 150,000 people and caused one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises.

The war became a proxy conflict between Saudi Arabia and Iran. Yemen has remained split between the Houthis, who later broke with Saleh’s camp and killed Saleh, and Hadi’s government. Various militias nominally back Hadi but also have their own interests and are funded by the United Arab Emirates.

Libya

Libya’s Moammar Gadhafi met the most violent end of any of the region’s strongmen. An uprising turned into a civil war, and then with NATO backing, the rebels seized the capital, Tripoli, and killed a fleeing Gadhafi in October 2011.

The oil-rich nation quickly splintered into regions controlled by a dizzying array of militias, including local and tribal groups, nationalists and mainstream Islamist factions, and diehard jihadis such as al-Qaida and the Islamic State group.

Attempts to stitch it back together with elections or agreements have failed.

A disputed parliamentary election in 2014 led to two rival administrations: one in the east backed by powerful military commander Khalifa Hifter, and the other in the west based in Tripoli that is backed by militias and recognized by the United Nations.

Hifter tried to seize the west in 2019, triggering a 14-month war. Then, an attempt at a unity government and new elections fell apart, and once again Libya was left split between east-west governments.

Foreign powers, including Russia, Turkey and the UAE, backed various sides. European countries have funneled money to the Tripoli government trying to stem the flow of migrants from Africa through Libya toward Europe, but the money has largely helped fund militias. Efforts to end the conflict remain deadlocked.

Sudan

In Sudan, the powerful military has thwarted attempts to transition to an elected civilian government.

Pro-democracy protests prompted the military to remove strongman Omar al-Bashir in April 2019, and the generals took power for themselves. The protesters stayed in the streets, demanding a handover of power to civilians, despite a crackdown that killed hundreds.

Finally, the generals agreed to a power-sharing deal with the pro-democracy alliance that led the protests.

A civilian prime minister led a Cabinet backed by a council headed by two powerful generals, including one notorious for atrocities committed in Darfur and during the 2019 crackdown on protesters. But just before the military was supposed to hand over the council’s leadership to civilians, the generals orchestrated a coup.

A few months later, in April 2023, the generals turned on each other, triggering a war in which their forces have battled throughout the country, including in the capital, Khartoum. The war has been marked by atrocities, caused widespread hunger and driven millions from their homes, becoming the world’s worst displacement crisis.

Tunisia

The Arab Spring started in Tunisia more than 13 years ago. Until recently, the country was hailed as a role model in the transition to democracy. It held free elections and drafted a constitution lauded by Western rights groups.

But since being elected in 2019, President Kais Saied has increased his powers in what activists call a backslide from democracy. Saied temporarily suspended the parliament, redrafted the constitution and launched a crackdown on his opponents, imprisoning hundreds allegedly for undermining state security — a claim autocrats have long used to stamp out dissent.

Egypt

The military has been the main power player in Egypt. It seized direct control after 18 days of protests forced longtime autocrat Hosni Mubarak to resign on Feb. 11, 2011.

Within 15 months, parliamentary and presidential elections were held. The Muslim Brotherhood, the most powerful opposition force during Mubarak’s era, swept both votes. Despite repeatedly insisting it wouldn’t seek to dominate politics, it formed a majority in parliament and created a Brotherhood-led government.

Over the next year, turmoil increased over accusations by opponents that the Brotherhood was unfairly imposing its will on the country, including writing an Islamist-leaning constitution. Many, including the large Coptic Christian minority, feared Islamist rule.

Amid anti-Brotherhood protests, the military stepped in and removed President Mohammed Morsi in July 2013, a move supported by many secular parties and activists. It launched a ferocious crackdown on the Brotherhood, killing hundreds. Militant violence swelled with attacks on security forces and Christians.

Military chief Abdel Fattah el-Sissi was elected president in 2014 and has since increased the influence of the army on the government and economy. The government has gone further than Mubarak did in stifling dissent, arresting Islamists and secular activists, and silencing media criticism.

The Associated Press

DADEVILLE, Ala. (AP) — A storm was looming when the inmate serving 20 years for armed robbery was assigned to transport fellow prisoners to their jobs at private manufacturers supplying goods to companies like Home Depot and Wayfair. It didn’t matter that Jake Jones once had escaped or that he had failed two drug and alcohol tests while in lockup — he was unsupervised and technically in charge.

By the time Jones was driving back to the work release center with six other incarcerated workers, it was pelting rain. Jones had a reputation for driving fast and some of his passengers said he was racing along the country road, jamming to music in his earbuds. Suddenly, the transport van hit a dip and swerved on the wet pavement, slamming into a tree.

Two men died after being thrown out of the van. And Jones, who was critically hurt and slumped over the blaring horn, had to be cut out of the vehicle. As the other men staggered into the storm to flag down help, they wondered: Why would the Alabama Department of Corrections place their lives in Jones’ hands?

“They knew he had a propensity to drink,” said Shawn Wasden, who survived the crash. “And they put him behind the wheel of a van anyway.”

No state has a longer, more profit-driven history of contracting prisoners out to private companies than Alabama. With a sprawling labor system that dates back more than 150 years — including the brutal convict leasing era that replaced slavery — it has constructed a template for the commercialization of mass incarceration.

Best Western, Bama Budweiser and Burger King are among the more than 500 businesses to lease incarcerated workers from one of the most violent, overcrowded and unruly prison systems in the U.S. in the past five years alone, The Associated Press found as part of a two-year investigation into prison labor. The cheap, reliable labor force has generated more than $250 million for the state since 2000 through money garnished from prisoners’ paychecks.

Most jobs are inside facilities, where the state’s inmates — who are disproportionately Black — can be sentenced to hard labor and forced to work for free doing everything from mopping floors to laundry. But more than 10,000 inmates have logged a combined 17 million work hours outside Alabama’s prison walls since 2018, for entities like city and county governments and businesses that range from major car-part manufacturers and meat-processing plants to distribution centers for major retailers like Walmart, the AP determined.

While those working at private companies can at least earn a little money, they face possible punishment if they refuse, from being denied family visits to being sent to higher-security prisons, which are so dangerous that the federal government filed a lawsuit four years ago that remains pending, calling the treatment of prisoners unconstitutional.

Though they make at least $7.25 an hour, the state siphons 40% off the top of all wages and also levies fees, including $5 a day for rides to their jobs and $15 a month for laundry.

Turning down work can jeopardize chances of early release in a state that last year granted parole to only 8% of eligible prisoners — an all-time low, and among the worst rates nationwide — though that number more than doubled this year after public outcry.

“It is a symptom of a completely, utterly broken system,” said Chris England, an Alabama lawmaker pushing for criminal justice reform.

Many prisoners work 40 hours a week outside their facilities and then get weekend passes, allowing them to go home without any supervision or electronic monitoring. So when prisoners are then told they’re too dangerous to be permanently released, England said, it looks like “another way to create a cheap labor force that is easily exploited and abused.”

Arthur Ptomey, who has worked at various private companies over the past six years, said he was denied parole in 2022 after losing his job at KFC, where he had complained about his low wages. A full-time cook, he was upset that even teenagers working the register were outearning him despite the fact that he had worked there for over a year.

Ptomey is one of 10 current and former prisoners who filed a class-action federal lawsuit last year against state officials, local governments and businesses like McDonald’s and Wendy’s franchises, contending they perpetuate a system of forced labor akin to a “modern-day form of slavery” that keeps the best workers from being released.

He currently works at Progressive Finishes, one of the state’s biggest contractors of prison labor, which says on its website that it has served as a third-party supplier to automotive companies including Honda, General Motors, Ford, Toyota, Nissan, Kia, Volvo, Chrysler and Hyundai.

“For a lot of these jobs, the attitude is the same … if you don’t meet our expectations, we’ll just call for somebody else,” Ptomey said while on a 48-hour home pass at his mother’s house. “I’m grateful to come out and work, but I ain’t come in here to be a slave.”

Kelly Betts of the corrections department defended the work programs, calling them crucial to the success of inmates preparing to leave prison. But she acknowledged that even those sentenced to life without the possibility of parole are eligible for so-called work release jobs.

That’s because in Alabama the department determines which prisoners are employed off site largely based on how well they’ve behaved behind bars, instead of what put them there. Those working among the civilian population include men and women with records for violent crimes like murder and assault. Many are serving 15 years or longer.

“Many choose work to being confined to a facility all day,” Betts said. “In many cases, it is a matter of quality of life. But ultimately, the inmate chooses and is not penalized for non-participation.”

Alabama’s lockups are chronically understaffed, and it’s not unusual for prisoners to work outside their facilities without any correctional oversight. And in some cases, there is no supervision of any kind, which has led to escapes, often referred to as “walkaways.”

Asked how prisoners are chosen to work without monitoring, Betts said, “Each inmate’s situation is unique, and each inmate is evaluated on his or her own record.”

Most companies did not respond to requests for comment, but the handful that did said they had no direct involvement with work release programs.

Home Depot said it would investigate its connection to outdoor furniture maker Wadley Holdings, where some men in the van crash were working. It said it prohibits suppliers from using prison labor and would take action if policy violations are found.

Best Western said it does not participate in personnel matters at its independently owned and operated hotels, and Hyundai said it knew some of its suppliers hired inmates for jobs but was not involved in the decision to do so. Honda said it was not aware of any business relationship with Progressive Finishes, which is common with companies and third-party suppliers.

As part of its investigation, the AP analyzed 24 years of Alabama corrections department monthly statistical reports to calculate the amount of money generated via contracts with private companies and deductions taken out of prisoners’ paychecks.

Reporters also parsed information from more than 83,000 pages of data obtained through a public records request, including the names of inmates involved in Alabama’s work programs. In addition to working for public entities — everywhere from landfills to the governor’s mansion — they were leased out to at least 500 private businesses between 2018 and mid-March 2024. That information was cross-referenced with an online state database, detailing the crimes that landed people in prison, their sentences, time served, race and good-time credits earned and revoked. The AP analysis faced limitations because some workplace entries were insufficiently defined.

Few prisoner advocates believe outside jobs should be abolished. In Alabama, for instance, those shifts can offer a reprieve from the excessive violence inside the state’s institutions. Last year, and in the first six months of 2024, an Alabama inmate died behind bars nearly every day, a rate five times the national average.

But advocates say incarcerated workers should be paid fair wages, given the choice to work without threat of punishment, and granted the same workplace rights and protections guaranteed to other Americans.

Prisoners nationwide cannot organize, protest or strike for better conditions. They also aren’t typically classified as employees, whether they’re working inside correctional facilities or for outside businesses through prison contracts or work release programs. And unless they are able to prove “willful negligence,” it is almost impossible to successfully sue when incarcerated workers are hurt or killed.

Though the Alabama corrections department said it could not provide information about the number of prisoners who died while on outside jobs, the AP tracked down family members of prisoners who lost their lives. One man was killed after being sucked into a machine at a plant operated by massive poultry processor Koch Foods and others died after being struck by vehicles while picking up trash or doing road maintenance on the side of busy highways.

The day of the van accident, Jake Jones had finished his shift at a nearby Quality Inn, where his boss and co-workers told the AP that nothing seemed amiss. He headed to the Alexander City work center, where he was a go-to driver, and grabbed the keys to the white Ford Econoline so he could shuttle his fellow prisoners to their jobs. He had about four hours of driving ahead of him, zipping between a string of companies up to 40 minutes apart.

Tyrone Heard, one of the passengers dropped off before the crash, said Jones had been drinking and that he believed staff knew it. Before heading out, he said he overheard two officers discussing whether they should find another driver.

An hour into the trip, Heard said, Jones “told us he was drunk.” At one point, he added, Jones smashed his foot on the gas until the speedometer topped 90 mph.

About two hours later, the van was wrapped around the tree. Heard’s uncle, Willie Crayton, was killed instantly. Bruce Clements struggled to breathe and died on the way to the hospital.

The accident report estimated the van’s speed was 67 mph upon impact — more than 20 mph over the speed limit. Blood tests were conducted to determine if drugs or alcohol were in the driver’s system, but those results have never been released. Police, volunteer firefighters and emergency medical responders would not comment, saying the case remained under investigation.

Betts, the corrections department spokeswoman, said Jones met all the criteria to be an inmate driver: Though he failed drug and alcohol tests in 2018 and 2022 — and another about a month after the accident — he passed his screening test two days before the deadly crash.

And prison guidelines only bar participation of prisoners who escaped or were recaptured within a 10-year period. His escape was in 2010.

Jones, who since has been moved to a higher-security facility, did not respond to questions from the AP.

Some of the men involved in the crash have been released from prison after serving their sentences, but others continue to report to outside jobs.

They still ride past the crash site, marked by a simple cross — with Willie Crayton’s hat resting on top.

“One dies, get another”

Prison labor is enshrined in the 13th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, which banned slavery and involuntary servitude – except for those convicted of a crime. That language also was added to the constitutions of many states, though eight of them have removed the so-called punishment clause in recent years after taking the issue to voters.

In 2022, Alabama became one of them, but Gov. Kay Ivey signed an executive order last year giving the corrections department the authority to revoke good-time credits — days shaved off sentences rewarding model behavior — for “refusing to work,” making it harder for even the best prisoners to accelerate their release.

“The people just say that they thought it was unconstitutional, inhumane … and you come back and say, ‘I don’t care,’” said Robert Earl Council, who is part of the federal lawsuit filed last year against forced labor in prison. “It verifies clearly to me the point that we’ve been trying to drive home … this is strictly, explicitly about the money.”

Council, also known as Kinetic Justice, spent five years in solitary confinement for helping lead prison work stoppages — including one that spread to facilities in several other states. At one point, he and other inmates also began hunger strikes, demanding an end to free labor.

Throughout the state’s history of prison labor, money has been a key driver.

Soon after the Civil War, when the South’s once-booming economy was in tatters, Alabama turned to convict leasing. Young, mostly Black men were arrested for petty crimes like gambling or vagrancy and hired out to private companies. They were forced to build railroads, work in sawmills and toil under deplorable conditions in coal mines, including those owned by U.S. Steel — the biggest company in the world at the time.

No state in America earned more from convict leasing than Alabama — at one point, it accounted for more than 70% of all annual revenue. It was also where companies made the most money. By the time Alabama became the last state to officially ban the practice in 1928, thousands of prisoners had died from rampant disease, dangerous working conditions and poor treatment. Incarcerated workers were treated as disposable, reflected in a quote at the time: “One dies, get another.”

Alabama shifted its strategy when industries began to modernize and mechanize, said Douglas Blackmon, whose book “Slavery by Another Name” chronicles the state’s dark past of convict leasing.

“Up until that moment, the practices were so profitable for both government officials and industry … that they would always find a way to continue the system,” he said. “It’s something that people have figured out how to make a lot of money on again. And so the practice reemerges.”

Fast forward to the 1970s, when conditions were so bad — from abysmal treatment of inmates with mental illnesses to extreme violence — that a U.S. federal judge took control of Alabama’s entire prison system.

That’s when the Department of Corrections decided to classify inmates largely by their behavior behind bars rather than their criminal histories, ostensibly to help alleviate overcrowding. Under the new standards, eligible participants would not only get paid for their outside jobs, but also have their sentences reduced for every day worked.

The system was adopted over the objections of Oscar Adams, the state’s first Black Supreme Court justice, who noted that the vast majority of those accepted would not get “good time” because prisoners sentenced to more than 10 years — later pushed to 15 — were ineligible. At the time, they represented the bulk of the prison population.

That population continued to grow, mostly due to historically harsh sentencing laws that put people away for life, even if they were convicted of nonviolent crimes. And so did its workforce.

Today, the state has a patchwork of programs that includes not just work centers — including jobs for the city and state paying $2 a day — but also work release programs operated at the county level, sometimes by nonprofit organizations. They receive about $10 a day for every person they house, plus hefty fees paid by prisoners for things like mandatory drug testing.

Some see the largely autonomous county programs as exploitative, but others call them a lifeline.

“It taught me how to be a man,” said Matthew Smith, who has a history of drug addiction and worked at a poultry plant through a community corrections work release program. “It taught me how to get up and go to work every day.”

Even prisoners who are happy working often complain about the steep pre-tax deductions taken by the state. After a 40-hour week, many say they end up pocketing only about $100 to $200.

But for the hundreds of private companies that hire them, the benefits are robust. Businesses pay at least minimum wage, but can earn up to $2,400 in tax credits for some inmates hired. Amid crushing staff shortages, they can rely on a steady, pliable workforce available to take extra shifts, fill in at the last minute when civilian workers call in sick and also work holidays. And if an incarcerated worker is injured or even killed on the job, the company may not be liable.

The same is true for businesses across the country. As part of its larger investigation, the AP spoke to more than 120 current and former prisoners and relatives of those who died on the job. Reporters found that the use of incarcerated workers is so pervasive nationwide that prison labor has seeped into the supply chains of some of the country’s largest companies and retailers — and also goods being exported.

Trader Joe’s, Cargill, McDonald’s and other companies responded to that reporting earlier this year by either cutting ties with correctional departments or third-party suppliers or indicating they were in the process of doing so.

In Alabama, the roster of companies hiring inmates is vast.

In the past five years, over 500 prisoners have worked at local Wendy’s, McDonald’s, Burger King and Applebee’s restaurants alone. They also have cleaned hotels, manufactured kitchen cabinets, made yarn used in carpets, constructed doors for houses sold at national home stores like Lowe’s, and built trailers pulled behind semi trucks. They’ve helped keep cities running across the state, and worked at public country clubs and even the Supreme Court.

Alabama collected more than $13 million in work release fees in fiscal year 2024. But the prisoner lawsuit filed in federal court late last year with backing from the powerful AFL-CIO federation of unions, estimates the corrections department actually rakes in about $450 million in benefits from prison labor annually. That takes into consideration money saved by not having to hire civilians to maintain the sprawling prison system or work for government agencies.

The suit also alleges that prisoners participating in work programs with good disciplinary records have been hardest hit by plummeting parole rates, with Black workers disproportionately affected.

A decade ago, nearly half the prisoners coming up for parole were released, with no clear racial disparity, it noted. But that changed several years ago when the board began disregarding its own guidelines and denying early releases to those who scored high enough to qualify, based on criteria like their crimes, perceived risk to society and behavior behind bars. In fiscal year 2023, there were 3,583 parole hearings that resulted in 3,286 denials — including one involving a man who had been dead for 10 days.

Alabama’s attorney general’s office did not respond to a request for comment. But in successfully moving for dismissal of a similar state lawsuit filed by inmates last year, it said “slavery and involuntary servitude do not exist in the state’s prison system.”

Those who take part in work release programs do so voluntarily, the motion noted.

For members of the public buying a Blizzard at Dairy Queen or having their cars worked on in a local garage, it can be hard to distinguish incarcerated employees from their civilian counterparts. In most cases, they dress in the same clothes or uniforms. And even those clearly identified as prisoners doing more traditional jobs like road work go unnoticed by most busy motorists speeding down the state’s roads.

That was true of Braxton Moon, his mother said. He told her how terrified he was by how dangerously close cars whizzed past him, even as he held a sign warning drivers to slow down.

Angela Lindsey pleaded with her son to quit — he was making only $2 a day. But he told her that working beat being locked up around the clock.

Two weeks later, in August 2015, Lindsey received a phone call from her cousin asking: “‘Is it true?’” An officer at the work center had posted a picture of her son on Facebook with the words “Rest in peace.”

She frantically called the center over and over, only to be hung up on each time. “All of this was before I even got anything — anything — from the state,” she said. “It was on social media. It was on the news.”

And then it was confirmed: Her son had been struck by a tractor-trailer in a hit and run along the side of Interstate 65.

He had died instantly. He was just 21.

____

Associated Press data journalists Arushi Gupta and Larry Fenn contributed to this report.

____

The Associated Press receives support from the Public Welfare Foundation for reporting focused on criminal justice. This story also was supported by Columbia University’s Ira A. Lipman Center for Journalism and Civil and Human Rights in conjunction with Arnold Ventures. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

—-

Contact AP’s global investigative team at [email protected] or https://www.ap.org/tips/

Robin Mcdowell And Margie Mason, The Associated Press

The so-called Burnside connector will open on Friday according to the provincial government.

The Highway 107 extension will connect Sackville, Bedford and Burnside, from Highway 102 in Lower Sackville to the existing 107 from Burnside to Musquodoboit Harbour.

The province does not say what time exactly the highway will open.

“The new extension of Highway 107 will create more efficient routes for people to travel and help reduce congestion and accidents that are currently seen on Magazine Hill,” said Fred Tilley, Minister of Public Works. “With our growing population, projects like this are also important to help support those who want to come and live in our great province.”

The extension came at a cost of $252.4 million. The provincial government spent $151.1 on the project, the federal government $86.5 million and the Halifax Regional Municipality contributed $14.8 million.

VILNIUS, Lithuania (AP) — An investigation of last month’s crash of a DHL cargo plane as it approached the airport in Vilnius has found no indication of “unauthorized interference,” the Lithuanian government said Friday.

The plane crashed and skidded into a house in the early morning of Nov. 25. A Spanish crew member was killed and the other three crew members were injured, but no one was hurt on the ground.

Officials acknowledged at the time that one line of inquiry would be whether Russia played a role given its suspected involvement in cases of sabotage, though they stressed there was no evidence pointing in that direction.

The Lithuanian Justice Ministry said in a statement Friday that after a preliminary analysis of the Boeing 737’s flight data recorder and cockpit voice recorder, as well as an examination of evidence from the accident scene, “no signs of unauthorized interference were found.”

The DHL aircraft was operated by Swiftair, a Madrid-based contractor. The Boeing 737 was 31 years old, which is considered by experts to be an older airframe, though that’s not unusual for cargo flights.

The Associated Press

MIRERENI, Mayotte (AP) — Crowds in Mayotte vented their frustration at French President Emmanuel Macron, with some booing, as he toured destruction wrought by the strongest cyclone to hit the French territory in nearly a century.

Particularly tense scenes on Thursday underscored the discontent that many residents of the archipelago in the Indian Ocean feel toward their government, based about 8,000 kilometers (5,000 miles) away in Paris.

The people of Mayotte, the poorest department in France, have previously said they suffer from underinvestment and neglect by the government. Now, they are expressing disappointment with the response to Cyclone Chido, which hit Saturday.

The storm has devastated entire neighborhoods and caused an unknown number of deaths, as many people ignored warnings, thinking the storm wouldn’t be so extreme. Authorities have said hundreds or possibly thousands may be dead, but the official toll rose to 35 on Friday.

In the morning, Macron visited a neighborhood in Tsingoni on Mayotte’s main island, where people remain without access to drinking water or phone service nearly a week after the storm.

As he walked through the area, some shouted: “We want water, we want water.” Others, however, offered him a warmer welcome, posing for selfies with the French leader and showing him their children.

But the night before, Macron was met with boos from dozens of residents in Pamandzi on another nearby island.

As people expressed frustration at the slow pace of aid efforts, Macron grabbed a microphone and became angry.

Moving towards the crowd, he said: “I have nothing to do with the cyclone, you can blame me, it wasn’t me!”

Macron, who is known for his appetite for debate and for confronting people who are angry at him, vacillated between acknowledging the hardship and pushing back against criticism.

“You’ve been through something terrible, everyone’s struggling, regardless of skin color,” he said.

Visibly losing patience, Macron then shouted: “If it wasn’t France, you’d be 10,000 times more screwed!”

The French president added: “There’s no place in the Indian Ocean where people get so much help!” A woman could be heard saying “we disagree.”

In a reflection of further frustration, a woman working with local authorities in Mayotte’s capital told The Associated Press on Friday that many deaths recorded by officials on the ground have not yet been published in official tallies.

The woman, who spoke on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the situation, said most of the people who died were migrants, living in the hills in flimsy houses. Mayotte is home to 320,000 residents and an estimated 100,000 additional migrants.

The woman was not able to give her own estimate.

The reported death toll has only slowly ticked up in the week since the cyclone hit and stood at 35 on Friday, even though authorities have said they know that is a dramatic undercount.

Many in Mayotte have expressed disbelief that the toll hasn’t been updated more quickly.

The Interior Ministry said Friday that in addition to the deaths, 67 people were seriously injured and more than 2,400 slightly injured.

“The number of deaths does not reflect the reality of the 100,000 people living in precarious housing,” the statement said. “The prefect has therefore ordered the deputy prefect to set up a mission to search for the dead.”

It said 70% of residents were “seriously affected.”

The government said it has created a way to count the dead by ordering a census of the population district by district, with the help of mayors and local associations.

In just one example of how the toll might grow, French Health Minister Geneviève Darrieussecq said Friday that about 17% of hospital staff and 40% of all regional health staff on the archipelago are still unaccounted for.

“That’s around 60 to 70 people,” she said on news broadcaster FranceInfo, stressing a large part of the population still has no access to phone service.

Meanwhile, French military and local authorities scrambled to repair busted water pipes across the islands and get water to villages who haven’t had any.

In the village of Mirereni, about 35 kilometers (20 miles) outside Mayotte’s capital, Civil Security officers were trying to remove a large, felled mango tree that busted a water pipe.

The pipe provides water to around 10,000 people in three nearby villages. But officials said repairing it might take longer than usual because of the heat, which impacts equipment.

Locals said they’re worried the lack of water would cause disease. Earlier this year, there was a cholera outbreak on the island, with at least 200 cases.

Mayotte is part an archipelago located between Africa’s east coast and Madagascar that had been a French colony. Its residents voted to remain part of France in a 1974 referendum while the rest of the islands became the independent nation of Comoros.

In recent decades, the French territory has seen massive migration from Comoros, one of the world’s poorest countries, most of whom entered and live illegally in Mayotte.

Macron said Friday fighting illegal immigration was key to state efforts to get Mayotte back on track.

“When you have schools where the population has multiplied by five in two years, when you have hospitals that are exploding under migration pressure, they feel they are being abandoned even if the state is doing a lot,” he said. “We won’t be able to solve Mayotte’s fundamental problems unless we solve the problem of illegal immigration.”

He has proposed rules that would apply to the territory in order to reduce the numbers of people coming in illegally.

On Thursday, he also announced a special law that would help rebuild Mayotte more quickly and would seek to destroy slums and replace tin shacks with more solid buildings.

___

Corbet reported from Paris.

I

Sam Mednick, Adrienne Surprenant And Sylvie Corbet, The Associated Press

TORONTO — Canada’s main stock index was up more than 200 points in late-morning trading, boosted by widespread gains, as U.S. markets also rose.

The S&P/TSX composite index was up 223.19 points at 24,637.13.

In New York, the Dow Jones industrial average was up 401.93 points at 42,744.17. The S&P 500 index was up 50.59 points at 5,917.86, and the Nasdaq composite index was up 155.67 points at 19,528.44.

The Canadian dollar traded for 69.63 cents US compared with 69.59 cents on Thursday.

The February crude oil contract was down 46 cents at US$69.82 per barrel and the January natural gas contract was up three cents at US$3.61 per mmBTU.

The February gold contract was up US$41 at US$2,649.10 an ounce and the March copper contract was up two cents at US$4.09 a pound.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Dec. 20, 2024.

Companies in this story: (TSX:GSPTSE, TSX:CADUSD)

The Canadian Press

You’ll need to find off-street parking overnight Friday into Saturday in the Halifax area.

The municipality says it will be enforcing its overnight winter parking ban, which means on-street parking will not be allowed between 1 a.m. and 6 a.m. Saturday.

The ban is put in place to allow winter operations crews to clear the snow.

The Halifax area is currently under a snowfall warning, calling for 15 to 30 cm of snow Friday night into Saturday afternoon.

OTTAWA — The Finance Department says the federal deficit was $14.5 billion between April and October.

That compares to a $15.1 billion deficit over the same period last year.

According to the monthly fiscal monitor, revenues were up $26.5 billion, or 10.7 per cent, compared with the same stretch in the previous fiscal year as revenues rose in all categories.

The finance department says program expenses excluding net actuarial losses were up $22.7 billion, or 9.8 per cent, driven by increases in direct program expenses, major transfers to persons, and major transfers to provinces, territories and municipalities.

Public debt charges were up by $5.3 billion, or 19.4 per cent, mostly reflecting higher interest rates on marketable bonds and treasury bills.

Net actuarial losses were down by $2.1 billion, or 46.8 per cent.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Dec. 20, 2024.

The Canadian Press

Nova Scotia's Utility and Review Board is set to decide on a recommendation from the province that says Route 19 Brewery in Inverness, N.S., should close for 60 days after allegedly violating liquor licensing regulations.

EVERGLADES, Fla. (AP) — The Miccosukee Tribe of Indians of Florida has long fought to heal and protect the Everglades and what remains of their ancestral lands.

Decades of massive engineering projects for development and agriculture severed the vast wetlands to about half its original size, destroying lands and waterways where the Miccosukee people hunted, fished, gathered plants, held sacred rituals and put their deceased to rest.

A massive state-federal project to clean the water and rehydrate the landscape aims to undo much of the damage. But tribe members say water management decisions have contributed to fires, floods and water pollution in their communities and cultural sites. Adding to the list of threats are climate change and the fossil fuel activities that caused it.

Although the Miccosukee people were historically reluctant to engage with the outside world due to America’s violent legacy against Indigenous people, that is changing with a new tribal administration. The tribe has played an increasingly collaborative and leadership role in healing the Everglades while protecting their deep connection to tradition and nature.

Even so, a committee of experts acknowledged a lack of meaningful engagement with the Miccosukee and Seminole tribes from state and federal agencies. They called for applying Indigenous knowledge to restoration efforts and a consistent partnership with tribes.

Here are the highlights from the full story:

‘It’s our turn to protect the Everglades’

For generations, the Miccosukee people made pilgrimages from northern Florida to the Everglades to fish, hunt and hold religious ceremonies. During the Seminole Wars that broke out in 1817, the U.S. Army pushed the Miccosukee west and seared tribal villages in a region known as the Big Cypress, forcing them, along with the Seminole people, to seek refuge on tree islands deep in the Everglades.

“That’s the reason we’re here today. We often look at the Everglades as our protector during that time. And so now, it’s our turn to protect the Everglades,” said Talbert Cypress, tribal council chairman.

Western Everglades Restoration Project

Many of the Everglades’ modern problems began in the 1940s when the region was drained to build cities and plant crops. Billions of dollars have been poured into projects with the goal of protecting and restoring what remains, but tribe members say water management decisions and restoration efforts have flooded or parched lands where they live and hold ceremonies.

That’s a reason the tribe has pushed for decades for a comprehensive response with the Western Everglades Restoration Project aimed at cleaning polluted water, improving hydrology, providing flood protection and reducing the likelihood and severity of wildfires. Groundbreaking for the project began in July.

A fight over a wilderness designation, fossil fuel activities

The Miccosukee people’s access to the Big Cypress National Preserve — a vital part of the Everglades, the tribe’s ancestral lands and home to traditional villages — was in jeopardy.

The National Park Service wanted to designate the preserve as wilderness, which the tribe said would have significantly impacted their traditional ways of life.

After a fight involving campaigns, a petition, testimonials and support from numerous government officials, the tribe succeeded in stopping the designation.

The Miccosukee continue working to stop more oil exploration in the preserve by acquiring mineral rights.

Elders look to youth to protect the Everglades

Tribal elder Michael John Frank remembered growing up on tree islands in the Everglades, a time when the water was so clean he could drink it and wildlife was abundant.

Tribal youth member Hector Tigertail heard similar stories growing up. They helped him feel connected to the Everglades and to his culture, serving as reminders of his role as a steward of lands that have cared for his people.

Tigertail is doing what he can to preserve the Everglades for his generation and those to come. He works with the Miccosukee Tribe’s Fish and Wildlife Department to remove invasive species like pythons and fish like peacock bass.

“To hear that we’re losing it slowly and slowly saddens me,” said Tigertail. “But also gives me hope that maybe there is a chance to save it.”

———

The Associated Press receives support from the Walton Family Foundation for coverage of water and environmental policy. The AP is solely responsible for all content. For all of AP’s environmental coverage, visit https://apnews.com/hub/climate-and-environment

Dorany Pineda And Rebecca Blackwell, The Associated Press

LeBron James set a record, which was good. Stephen Curry set a personal record, which was not good.

Detroit faced the biggest early deficit of any team this season. Golden State faced the biggest overall deficit of any game this season.

And Victor Wembanyama showed, yet again, that the unusual is his usual. A look back at a most eventful Thursday in the NBA:

LeBron passes Kareem — again

Another record for LeBron James: He has now played more regular-season minutes than anyone in NBA history, passing Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.

When counting playoffs, James had the minutes record long ago. But this is yet another entry for the glowing resume, which includes — among many other things — passing Abdul-Jabbar as the NBA’s all-time scoring leader as well.

“It’s a pretty cool honor,” James said.

Steph goes 0 for 7

This has never happened before: Stephen Curry played more than 11 minutes in a game and didn’t make a single field goal. The Golden State star went 0 for 7 from the field, 0 for 6 from 3-point range in a 144-93 loss to Memphis.

“Embarrassing,” Curry said.

It was that kind of night for the Warriors. Because …

Warriors trail by 57, lose by 51

… as we were saying, it was a bad night for Golden State. The Warriors trailed Memphis by 57 points in the fourth quarter, then lost by 51.

Both of those numbers — biggest deficit and biggest final margin — were the worst in the NBA so far this season.

“You lose by 51, that’s humbling,” Warriors coach Steve Kerr said.

But on the plus side …

There also was a winning team in that 51-point game. It should be noted that there have been two games where a team has won by 45 points or more this season.

Memphis won by 51 over Golden State on Thursday. And Memphis also won by 45 over Portland on Nov. 10.

The Pistons dug a really big hole

Credit to Detroit: The Pistons lost by only seven to Utah on Thursday, 126-119.

That means the Pistons played a really — really — good final three quarters. Because the first quarter was awful.

Detroit trailed 48-19 in the first quarter. The 29-point deficit in the opening 12 minutes was the worst by any team in a first quarter so far this season — and the biggest such deficit by any Detroit team since at least 1996.

In that same game, Utah’s Jordan Clarkson and Detroit’s Ron Holland both got ejected for squaring up as if they wanted to fight. No punches were thrown.

Welcome home, KAT

Respect, Minnesota. Timberwolves fans did the right thing and cheered Karl-Anthony Towns in his first game back after being traded to the New York Knicks.

Evidently, they made him feel right at home again. Towns had 32 points, 20 rebounds and six assists and the Knicks blew out the Timberwolves 133-107.

Shai’s streak continues

Shai Gilgeous-Alexander had 35 points in Oklahoma City’s 105-99 win over banged-up Orlando (which was already without Paolo Banchero and Franz Wagner, then lost Jalen Suggs to ankle issues on Thursday).

Gilgeous-Alexander has scored 25 or more points in 16 straight games — with the asterisk there being that the NBA Cup final doesn’t count, since he had only 21 in Tuesday’s loss to Milwaukee.

The 16-game streak is the longest in the league this season.

Merry Christmas. Also, humbug

Celtics stars Jaylen Brown and Jayson Tatum got fourth-quarter technical fouls in Boston’s loss to Chicago on Thursday night, one where the reigning NBA champions unraveled down the stretch.

Another tech went to Celtics coach Joe Mazzulla, who had some angry words directed toward the referee crew after the final buzzer of the Bulls’ 117-108 win.

“I just hadn’t seen them in a while, so just a Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, wasn’t sure I was going to see them before the holiday,” Mazzulla explained afterward with a perfectly straight face. “I just can’t let a moment go by where you wish someone just the best to them and theirs and their families.”

The video does not seem to indicate he was spreading holiday cheer.

Referee injured

Veteran referee Scott Foster evidently got injured in Houston.

The longtime NBA Finals ref left in the third quarter of the Rockets’ home game against New Orleans with an undisclosed injury. He did not return.

Foster has worked nearly 2,100 games in his NBA career.

Wemby has another monster line

Victor Wembanyama became the 23rd player in NBA history to take both 15 3-pointers and 12 free throws in a game. Most everyone else on that list is a guard. Wemby is 7-foot-4.

It was another night at the office for the Spurs star: 42 points, six rebounds, five assists, four blocks, two steals. San Antonio beat Atlanta 133-126 in overtime.

All-Star voting opens

Thursday was the first day of voting for the revamped All-Star Game, which is a three-game, mini-tournament with games to 40 points this season.

It’s new. It’s different. It’s not unanimously liked. Phoenix star Kevin Durant’s first reaction was that he “hated” it.

He backed off, a bit, in an interview on FanDuelTV on Thursday. “I work for the league, basically. I can’t be going up against the league like that,” Durant said. “But that was my opinion.”

___

AP NBA: https://apnews.com/NBA

Tim Reynolds, The Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — An inflation gauge that is closely watched by the Federal Reserve barely rose last month in a sign that price pressures cooled after two months of sharp gains.

Friday’s report from the government showed that prices rose just 0.1% from October to November. Excluding the volatile food and energy categories, prices also ticked up just 0.1%, after two months of outsize 0.3% gains.

The milder inflation figures arrived two days after Federal Reserve officials, led by Chair Jerome Powell, rocked financial markets by revealing that they now expect to cut their key interest rate just two times in 2025, down from four in their previous estimate. Stickier inflation, Powell said, “might be the single biggest factor” causing the central bank to reduce the number of rate cuts it envisions. Fewer Fed rate cuts would likely mean that mortgage rates and other consumer borrowing costs would remain elevated.

Yearly inflation was 2.4% in November, up from 2.3% in October and above the Fed’s 2% inflation target. Year-over-year “core” prices, which exclude volatile food and energy costs, were unchanged at 2.8%.

Inflation, according to the measure released Friday — the personal consumption expenditures price index — has plummeted from a peak of 7.2% in June 2022 to 2.1% in September. The Fed’s tool for fighting inflation is to steadily raise borrowing costs across the economy, which tends to cool spending and growth.

policymakers revised their expectation for inflation by the end of 2025 to 2.5%, unchanged from its current rate. The officials still expect core prices to fall by the end of next year, also to 2.5%.

“It’s way below where it was but we really want to see (more) progress on inflation,” Powell said at a news conference Wednesday. “As we think about further cuts, we’re going to be looking for progress.”

The Fed did cut its benchmark rate Wednesday by a quarter point to about 4.3%, after its larger-than-usual half-point rate cut in September and a quarter-point reduction in November.

The Fed tends to favor the PCE index over the better-known consumer price index. The PCE index tries to account for changes in how people shop when inflation jumps. It can capture, for example, when consumers switch from pricier national brands to cheaper store brands.

In general, the PCE index tends to show a lower inflation rate than CPI. In part, that’s because rents, which have been high, carry double the weight in the CPI.

Christopher Rugaber, The Associated Press

For the world, 2024 was riven by — and in some ways defined by — conflict on two fronts.

The ripples after the previous year’s Hamas attacks in Israel left Gaza a shambles and tens of thousands dead, and an adjacent conflict between Israel and Hezbollah is playing out across the Lebanon landscape as the year ends.

A continent away, the Russia-Ukraine war, which began with Russia’s invasion in early 2022, rages on and evolves, claiming more casualties as it goes.

Associated Press journalists have been covering these conflicts since they began. Now, as 2024 ends and a new year begins, we asked two veteran AP reporters — Josef Federman in Jerusalem and Samya Kullab in Kyiv — to talk about what they saw the past year and what struck them. Here are their accounts:

JOSEF FEDERMAN, news director, Israel/Palestinian territories/Jordan

ON REGIONAL IMPLICATIONS: There’s a shift going on. There are these two blocs in the Middle East. You have Iran and its allies, and then you have the pro-western Arab countries and Israel. The Iranians’ allies include Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis in Yemen, Assad’s government in Syria. Now you see all of this falling apart. Oct. 7 triggered this chain reaction across the region. And what we’ve seen is that the Iran bloc as a whole is collapsing before our eyes. So what Hamas had hoped to do, if you go back and you look at what they said on Oct. 7th, they were expecting the entire Middle East to kind of rise up against Israel with them. And the only one that really did it was Hezbollah in Lebanon. Some of these other Iranian-backed groups kind of joined in. But what you’ve seen over this past year is that Israel has been dismantling Hamas. Hamas still exists at a very low level, but it is nothing close to what it was, and it probably never will be again. So it has dismantled Hamas in Gaza. And it struck a very tough blow to Hezbollah as well.

IMPACT ON HEZBOLLAH: For years, the Israelis built up Hezbollah as like the boogeyman. They said, “Oh, Hamas is a walk in the park compared to what we’re going to deal with Hezbollah.” And people were really dreading that second front opening up. And then it really boiled over into a full-fledged war over the summer. And then Israel moved in and sent ground troops into Lebanon. And it delivered, not as hard hit as what it did to Hamas, but a body blow to Hezbollah as well. Israel assassinated Hassan Nasrallah. who was this very charismatic figure who led the group for 30 years. It killed nearly all of the group’s top leaders. And the exploding pager incident was more psychological than anything — hundreds of Hezbollah members suddenly are afraid to look at their phones and use their devices after these mysterious explosions. It just shows how far Israel infiltrated this group.

HOW SYRIA FITS IN: There’s a clear connection here. Israel struck a blow to Iran’s allies, and then these rebels in Syria saw weakness. Once Hezbollah caved, within days they were moving across Syria. And within a week or two, Assad had been toppled — after his family was in power for half a century. And the reason Syria was so important was it was the main route for Hezbollah to rearm. The arms would be transferred through Syria across the Lebanese border. That option doesn’t exist anymore. So what was already fragmentation has become even more fragmented. And now Syria is no longer an arms smuggling route to Hezbollah, so Hezbollah is also not going to be the same threat. Israel’s not out of the woods, though, because you don’t know what’s going to emerge in Syria.

WHAT 2025 MIGHT HOLD FOR GAZA: There are signs the war is in its final stages. But even if it ends, I don’t see how anybody would want to invest into rebuilding Gaza again, given the history where every three or four years there is another war where all your work gets destroyed. So for them to get investment this time on that the scale that’s needed, there are going to have to be some big changes in the way people think. They’re not going to just go back to Oct. 6. That’s where diplomacy comes in — who’s going to run it? It has to be somebody that’s trusted by all of the sides. It has to be somebody that’s confident they can do things differently. And you’re going to have that constant threat of Hamas undermining the work if they’re not part of this anymore.

ON TRAUMA: When this is over one thing that seems safe to say is there’s not going to be a happy ending here. Nobody’s going to come out of this war smiling. Many of the hostages aren’t coming back alive. Even if Israel succeeds in dismantling Hamas, if all of these hostages that are alive get out, who knows what sort of trauma they are facing and future they’re going to have? There are the Oct. 7 victims, and hundreds of Israeli soldiers have been killed since then. Their friends and families are all grieving. And the future of Gaza, it has been bombed really into oblivion. I mean, the amount of damage that we can see from satellite photos and from our people on the ground, it will probably take decades to rebuild. No one knows who’s going to govern Gaza. Nobody knows who’s going to pay for this reconstruction. And then just think about all the trauma, what everybody’s been through. Tens of thousands of people killed — lots of militants but also lots of civilians. We have 90% of the territory that has been displaced. Many, if not most, are living in tents in squalid conditions. About half of Gaza’s population is below the age of 18. It’s a young society. You have an entire generation of children who have missed two full years of school. Who knows what type of education they will get? How do you make up that time? And what future do they have?

SAMYA KULLAB, correspondent, Ukraine

ON THE STATUS OF THE WAR: Ukraine is not winnable in the way maybe Ukrainians had hoped back in 2022, when there were real victories the the failure of the battle for Kyiv the winning back territory and the counter-offensive. The jubilation and the joy from those initial moments has kind of turned into this incredible feeling of gloom and coming to terms with what we’ve always known — that Ukraine is at a terrible disadvantage. I would describe it as being bled out slowly.

ON OUTSIDE BACKING: A lot hangs on what kind of support Ukraine will get from allies. And that’s also been wanting. One of the reasons Ukrainian military leaders can’t execute battle plans is because the military support they expected coming from Western allies did not arrive. It did not come on time. But at the same time, those decisions, those battle plans, we have to also look at them and question whether they are, in fact, effective on the battlefield.

ON MORALE: The men are just holding onto these defensive lines with everything they have. A year ago, even, I would never hear soldiers say anything negative on record about their leaders. Now people are not only saying it to me on record, they are going online on their social media, with their names, their rank, their units, and telling everyone they know about what is not working. And that, I think, says a lot about where we are. And Ukraine can’t afford to fire anyone. They need as much manpower as possible. There have been tens of thousands of cases of desertion — 100,000 since the beginning of the full-scale invasion. And more than half of that figure is from just the last year. Many of them go back and then leave again, but Ukraine doesn’t have the ability to prosecute 100,000 men. So they much prefer to try to convince them to come back.

ON LIFE FOR NONCOMBATANTS: The war is all-encompassing, so you can’t escape that it’s happening. You walk down the street, you look at some lovely little things on sale, and you see a little sign that says, “Please buy these handmade things. I’m trying to raise money for my husband’s military unit.” There are donation boxes everywhere. The number of amputees I see walking on the street — I see them every single day. And now it’s being more normalized. There is a version of “The Bachelor” here in Ukraine where the main guy is a double amputee, so it’s becoming more normalized in that way. For people who are not fighting, Kiev feels a bit like a bubble in the sense that there are cafes, there are lovely restaurants, there are bars, people are out. But there’s curfew so by midnight everything is closed and there’s air raid alerts all the time all the time. Today we had almost 200 drones, 90 missiles and one of the largest attacks in at least in a few weeks. So this is all happening around you.

ON THE NEAR FUTURE: Two years ago, Zelenskyy would never have said anything about a ceasefire or any kind of agreement that would not include the return of the occupied territories, and now Zelenskyy has said, “Well, we may not be able to get them back military by military force alone it might be a mix of military and diplomacy. That was a signal to all of us that things have changed. My sense from talking to people in Kyiv is everyone is waiting for Donald Trump and what he will decide. And then the other kind of elephant in the room is, does Russia even want to engage in any kind of negotiation? Why would they? They have the advantage. Another question is, how long can they go?

A MEMORABLE MOMENT IN 2024: We found this one woman, and she told us that she had to leave with her children because her daughter was injured. She needed a proper doctor. She couldn’t leave with her husband because her husband had served with Ukraine and the Russians knew that. And so he was basically under house arrest and he had been tortured. So she left and we asked her, were you there during the floods? And she said, yeah, I dragged bodies and I buried them with my own hands. And she described this experience she had of picking up bodies in boats, taking them to the shore and then burying them in the cemetery. And one thing I’ll never forget of what she said was, “The dead don’t scare me. The living frighten me far more.” We don’t communicate with her anymore, and I still think about where she is, what she’s what she’s going through and the bravery it takes to leave your home and then the bravery it takes to go back to a place that’s not safe.

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Follow AP’s yearend coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/year-in-review.

The Associated Press

A day before a potential government shutdown, the House rejected President-elect Donald Trump’s new plan Thursday to fund operations and suspend the debt ceiling, as Democrats and dozens of Republicans refused to accommodate his sudden demands.

Here’s the latest:

Harris cancels trip and will stay in Washington as shutdown looms

Vice President Kamala Harris cancelled a planned trip to Los Angeles with Washington on the verge of a government shutdown.

She had been scheduled to travel to her home state late Thursday, but instead will remain in the capital, the White House said, after Republicans backed away from a bipartisan compromise to fund the government.

Bill fails in House, next steps remain uncertain

The House rejected President-elect Donald Trump’s new plan Thursday to fund operations and suspend the debt ceiling.

In a hastily convened evening vote punctuated by angry outbursts over the self-made crisis, the lawmakers failed to reach the two-thirds threshold needed for passage — but House Speaker Mike Johnson appeared determined to reassess, before Friday’s midnight deadline.

“We’re going to regroup and we will come up with another solution, so stay tuned,” Johnson said after the vote. The cobbled-together plan didn’t even get a majority, with the bill failing 174-235.

The outcome proved a massive setback for Trump and his billionaire ally, Elon Musk, who rampaged against Johnson’s bipartisan compromise, which Republicans and Democrats had reached earlier to prevent a Christmastime government shutdown.

Read more about the vote and where things stand

The Associated Press

TAIPEI, Taiwan (AP) — Lawmakers clashed in Taiwan’s legislature Friday when members of a leading political party who had broken into the building overnight to occupy the speaker’s chair tussled with members of another major party who forced their way in to evict them.

Some lawmakers were injured in the clash, according to Taiwan media reports, though it wasn’t clear how seriously.

At issue are three bills that the Nationalist Party, or Kuomintang, was trying to push through, including one that critics say would paralyze the Constitutional Court. The legislature approved one bill that would stiffen the requirements for voter petitions to recall elected officials, and debate on the other two was continuing into the night. The third bill would redistribute tax revenues by giving a larger share to local governments.

Lawmakers from the Democratic Progressive Party, which says the bills threaten Taiwan’s democratic system, removed windows to get into the building Thursday night and take over the speaker’s area, piling up walls of chairs to block access, Taiwan’s Central News Agency said.

Photos and videos of the morning clash showed chaotic scenes with Nationalist members trying to remove or push their way though the barriers of chairs or clamber over a ledge in front of the speaker’s area. Lawmakers from the other side shoved them and the chairs back and squirted or flung mineral water at them from plastic bottles.

The Nationalists, wearing matching white windbreakers, eventually took control of the area, allowing the speaker, Han Kuo-yu, to take his position.

The Democratic Progressive Party, known as the DPP, was attempting to block any votes on the bills. Neither they nor the Nationalists, known as the KMT, won a majority in the last legislative election. The KMT, which took slightly more seats, has teamed up with a minor party to take control of the legislature and is jostling for power with Taiwan’s president, Lai Ching-te, who is from the DPP.

A DPP leader said in a social media video Thursday night that the party’s actions were extreme but that it had no other options, the Central News Agency reported. Negotiations on the bills have failed to resolve differences between the parties.

Thousands of DPP supporters protested outside the legislature on Thursday night and Friday.

One protester, Stevie Kuo, said the KMT and its partner want to paralyze the court, drain the central government’s finances and make it more difficult to recall elected officials.

“I think these three things will considerably harm Taiwan,” the postgraduate student said. “The people do not want this to happen.”

Lawmakers in Taiwan have brawled in the past. In 2020, they threw pig guts at each other over a government decision to lift a ban on the import of U.S. pork and beef.

___

Moritsugu reported from Beijing.

Taijing Wu And Ken Moritsugu, The Associated Press

Talking Nova Scotia and film with Ron Foley Macdonald

The post ‘We often think we’re in the middle of nowhere, but really we’re right in the middle of everything’ appeared first on Halifax Examiner.

DAKAR, Senegal (AP) — More than 40 million people are now struggling to feed themselves across West and Central Africa with that number set to rise to 52 million by the middle of next year, the United Nations food agency said Friday.

According to a new report released Friday, the World Food Program said 3.4 million people are currently facing “emergency levels of hunger” in the region, representing a 70% increase in such cases since the summer.

The report said conflict, displacement, economic instability and severe climate shocks are driving food insecurity. The ongoing conflict in the Sahel, as well as the Sudanese civil war, have forcibly displaced over 10 million people across the region. Massive flooding in Nigeria and Chad earlier this year has made the situation acute.

Although the numbers are staggering, the new report reduces last year’s estimate of the number of people facing food insecurity by 7.7 million. The WFP attributes the drop to better-than-average rainfall and marginal security improvements, which are unlikely to continue improving.

Still, the WFP report says food insecurity will next year touch nearly one in ten people in West and Central Africa that the World Bank estimates is home to over half a billion people.

Margot van der Velden, WFP’s regional director for Western Africa, said the “vicious cycle of hunger” in the region can be broken with better planning and preparedness.

“We need timely, flexible, and predictable funding to reach crisis-affected people with lifesaving assistance, and massive investments in preparedness, anticipatory action and resilience-building to empower communities and reduce humanitarian needs,” said Van der Velden.

Wilson Mcmakin, The Associated Press

MEXICO CITY (AP) — Seven inmates were killed in a prison riot in southern Mexico, when inmates resisting transfers to other jails fought police with guns and knives, authorities said late Thursday.

Four police officers and six other inmates were injured in the riot in the city of Villahermosa, the capital of the Gulf coast state of Tabasco.

State police chief Víctor Hugo Chávez said late Thursday that officers were met by gunfire early in the day when they entered the prison to transfer two dangerous inmates to a federal penitentiary.

One of the inmates with a gun held out for about three hours, protected by 20 fellow prisoners.

Chávez did not specify if police opened fire on the group, but said: “Authorities have to act to defend their own lives, too.”

Fires also broke out in the prison during the riot, and crowds of angry, desperate relatives gathered outside the prison, demanding information about family members locked up inside.

After regaining control of the facility several hours later, authorities found an assault rifle, five pistols, a hand grenade, 23 machetes, 14 knives and 23 homemade shivs.

They did not explain how the firearms got into the prison. Jais in Mexico are known for notoriously loose controls and corruption, to the extent that gangs at some penitentiaries control their own cell blocks and extort other prisoners for protection money.

The Associated Press

This is a collection of photos chosen by AP photo editors.

The Associated Press

ZAGREB, Croatia (AP) — A student injured his teacher and several other students in a knife attack at his school in the Croatian capital, Zagreb, police said Friday.

They said the attack happened at 9:50 a.m. at a school in the Precko neighborhood. They described the attacker as a “young male” and said he had been detained. They did not confirm media reports that one student had died.

Video footage published by Croatian media showed children running away from the school building.

The Associated Press

GOMA, Congo (AP) — Congolese President Felix Tshisekedi has replaced the armed forces chief and several other top military officers in a major reshuffle amid the ongoing fight against rebels in the country’s eastern region, state media announced late Thursday.

The Chief of General Staff of the Armed Forces, Gen. Christian Tshiwewe, who has been in office since October 2022 during the last major shake-up, was replaced by Lt. Gen. Jules Banza Mwilambwe.

Congo’s military has been fighting more than 100 armed groups for years in the mineral-rich eastern region where the rebels are vying for a foothold in a conflict that has created one of the world’s largest humanitarian crises. More than 7 million people have been displaced so far and hundreds were killed in the last year. Among the key actors is the M-23 rebel group, which Congo and United Nations peacekeepers have said is supported by neighboring Rwanda.

The state television report did not give reasons for the military reshuffle. Other key figures affected included Maj. Gen. Christian Ndaywel, who was the chief of military intelligence and among those involved in the peace talks with Rwanda.

The conflict in the region has worsened in the last year, with rebels claiming victories in new territories. Several territories in the region, particularly in the North Kivu province, are already under the control of the rebels.

Planned face-to-face peace talks between the leaders of Congo and Rwanda in Angola were canceled on Sunday with the Congolese presidency saying the Rwandan delegation refused to take part in the meeting while Rwanda’s government said it was postponed.

Justin Kabumba, The Associated Press