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Montreal-Toronto VIA Rail passengers stranded for hours due to fallen debris

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 12:00:27 GMT

Several VIA Rail trains between Toronto and Montreal were cancelled as passengers were stranded for hours due to power outages and track obstructions, including fallen trees.Passengers tell CityNews that they have been stuck idle since Wednesday afternoon and are reportedly being told they won’t arrive in Toronto until midnight.On passenger aboard a VIA Rail train from Ottawa en route to Toronto says their train hit a tree in the afternoon between 1 and 2 p.m.“Passengers were told that a train was coming from Montreal to take them to Toronto. At 6:30 p.m., passengers were told this was false, and there was no train from Montreal,” said passenger Melissa Brooks.A VIA Rail official tells CityNews that strong winds and heavy rain mixed with thunderstorms across southern Ontario greatly affected travel, noting they are offering full refunds to passengers impacted — plus 50 per cent travel credits.“Power outages and track obstructions are causing service del...

Philippines tries to bring back small fish key to rural diet

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 12:00:27 GMT

TANAUAN, Leyte, Philippines (AP) — The Philippines, a nation made up of thousands of islands, is home to about 1.6 million people who work in fisheries, and the majority of those fishers are small-scale harvesters who collectively catch almost half of the nation’s fish.Years of market pressures, lack of fisheries management and unchecked overfishing from larger commercial fishers have led to a decline in small fish such as sardines that rural coastal communities in the country of about 110 million people depend on. Data is not available on the state of many fish stocks, but the conservation group Oceana has said more than 75% of the nation’s fishing grounds are depleted.The problem of overfishing is especially detrimental to the country’s poorest people, many of whom earn their livings by fishing, said Ruperto Aleroza, an anti-poverty activist who has spent decades harvesting small fish like sardines and round scad from the waters around the archipelago. The small fish are important...

Takeaways from AP report on overfishing’s threat to conch

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 12:00:27 GMT

FREEPORT, Bahamas (AP) — No longer a theoretical threat, overfishing across the globe has wiped out species from areas where they once thrived. And one result is that it’s taken off the table beloved culturally important dishes.In the Bahamas, government officials and conservationists are working to save the conch – a marine snail that’s central to the island nation’s diet, economy and identity.The overfishing challenges faced by Bahamians are mirrored in places as different as Senegal, where overfishing has taken away white grouper, long a main ingredient in the national dish of thieboudienne, and the Philippines, where it has depleted small fish such as sardines that are used in kinilaw, a raw dish similar to ceviche.WHAT’S HAPPENING IN THE BAHAMAS?“When I was a child, we never had to go that far to get conch,” said Tereha Davis, 49, whose family has fished for conch for five generations in the Bahamas.Davis and others remember when someone could walk into the water from the beach...

B.C. to boost minimum wage to $16.75 an hour, matches 6.9 per cent inflation

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 12:00:27 GMT

VICTORIA — British Columbia’s minimum wage will increase to $16.75 an hour, a boost that the government says would fulfil a promise to tie the benchmark pay level to inflation.The new minimum wage is to kick in on June 1, representing a 6.9 per cent increase from the current $15.65 an hour.Labour Minister Harry Bains said Wednesday it is a key step to preventing the province’s lowest-paid workers from falling behind.“These workers and their families feel the impacts of high costs much more than anyone else,” he said in a news release.Bains said the same percentage increase would apply to residential caretakers, live-in home-support workers and camp leaders.BC Federation of Labour president Sussanne Skidmore said the wage hike was “much-needed.”“B.C. is one of the most expensive provinces in Canada,” she said in a statement. “So, it makes sense that we continue to have the highest minimum wage of any province. “But we still have a lot o...

Senegal struggles with loss of fish central to diet, culture

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 12:00:27 GMT

DAKAR, Senegal (AP) — In Senegal, the national dish of thieboudienne is entwined in the country’s history and culture. It’s a rich dish of fish, rice and vegetables that literally brings people together – traditionally eaten in communal fashion around a single dish.But the preferred species for the dish is white grouper, and the fishery has collapsed in the face of aggressive fishing by locals and foreign poaching. And there are few other fish to turn to, as overfishing has “greatly diminished” other species in Senegal, where one in six people work in the fisheries sector, according to a report from the United States Agency for International Development.Overfishing like that which has threatened thieboudienne is seen across the planet. In the Bahamas, scientists and government officials are working to save conch, a marine snail central to the island nation’s identity. In the Philippines, overfishing has depleted small fish such as sardines used in the traditional raw dish of k...

US court denies ex-Peruvian president extradition stay

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 12:00:27 GMT

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — A United States federal court on Wednesday denied former Peru President Alejandro Toledo Manrique’s appeal to stop his extradition to his native country to face charges he accepted millions of dollars in bribes from a Brazilian company.Toledo, 77, had filed for a stay on his extradition pending a legal challenge to the U.S. State Department’s decision to send him back to Peru, where he is accused of taking $20 million in bribes from Odebrecht, a construction giant.Toledo argued that Peru hadn’t submitted a charging document or shown probable cause. But the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco said in its ruling that Peruvian prosecutors have filed charging documents that are sufficient to support Toledo’s extradition. The three-member panel said statements made by two witnesses in the corruption case who testified against Toledo were enough “to establish probable cause in an extradition hearing.” “Toledo, moreover, admitted that...

In Bahamas, a struggle to save conch, and a way of life

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 12:00:27 GMT

FREEPORT, Bahamas (AP) — Tereha Davis, whose family has fished for conch from waters around the Bahamas for five generations, remembers when she could walk into the water from the beach and pick up the marine snails from the seabed.But in recent years, Davis, 49, and conch fishers like her have had to go further and further from shore – sometimes as far as 30 miles – to find the mollusks that Bahamians eat fried, stewed, smoked and raw and are a pillar of the island nation’s economy and tourism industry.Scientists, international conservationists and government officials have sounded the alarm that the conch population is fading due to overfishing, and a food central to Bahamians’ diet and identity could cease to be commercially viable in as little as six years.“When I was a child, we never had to go that far to get conch,” said Davis, speaking at a Freeport market where she sold her catch. “Without conch, what are we supposed to do?”Conch’s potential demise reflect...

Missing 16-year-old last seen Friday at Avalon Park gas station

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 12:00:27 GMT

CHICAGO — Chicago police are looking for a missing 16-year-old boy last seen Friday at a gas station in Avalon Park.Demarco Clark is described as being about 6 feet 2 inches tall, weighing about 160 pounds, with brown eyes and black eyes. Firefighter dies after Gold Coast high-rise blaze; second in last 2 days According to Chicago police, he was last seen on March 31 at a gas station in the 8300 block of Stony Island Avenue.He was last seen wearing a black North Face jacket with a black hooded sweatshirt underneath, black jeans and all white Nike Air Force Ones, police said. He also has both of his ears pierced. Anyone with information on his whereabouts is asked to call 911 or Area One SVU detectives at 312-747-8380.

California woman indicted for allegedly poisoning husband with drain cleaner

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 12:00:27 GMT

IRVINE, Calif. (KTLA) - An Irvine, California dermatologist has been indicted after she allegedly poisoned her husband over several weeks with liquid drain cleaner last year, officials announced Wednesday.Yue “Emily” Yu, 45, is accused of pouring the liquid into her husband’s tea, which caused him to have stomach ulcers, according to the Orange County District Attorney’s Office.Yu was arrested last summer after her husband of 10 years began noticing a strange taste in his tea. The taste continued and he decided to install cameras in the family’s kitchen to see if he could capture any evidence of why his tea tasted strange, officials said.Video captured on multiple days in July 2022 appeared to show Yu pouring a liquid out of a bottle of drain cleaner and into her husband’s tea that was left on the counter. Images of Irvine woman allegedly poisoning husband released; restraining order filed The victim also collected samples of the tea and turned them over to the Irvine Police Depar...

Snow on the beach: Florida deputies say $100,000 in cocaine washed ashore

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 12:00:27 GMT

WALTON COUNTY, Fla. (WMBB) — Deputies in Walton County, Florida say they are investigating after three packages of cocaine were discovered washed ashore on three different areas of the beach.One of three packages of cocaine that recently washed ashore in Florida. (Walton County Sheriff's Office) Deputies responded to Scenic Gulf Drive in Miramar Beach on Monday after a beachgoer found what appeared to be some type of narcotics. "The package was in a clear Ziploc bag wrapped in clear plastic. The package was confiscated and submitted into evidence for destruction," deputies wrote in a news release. But later the same day, deputies were called to the Gulfview Heights beach access where they found a brick of cocaine, sometimes referred to as 'snow,' washed up on the shoreline."The package was wrapped in a bio bag and was black in color with a logo sticker on the outside," deputies wrote. "The package was brought to the South Walton substation where it later tested positive for cocaine ...