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Commandos pluck 2 children from dangling cable car in Pakistan; 6 more people wait for rescue

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:11:38 GMT

By RIAZ KHAN (Associated Press)PESHAWAR, Pakistan (AP) — Army commandos dangling from helicopters plucked two children from a broken cable car suspended hundreds of meters (feet) above a canyon Tuesday in a remote part of Pakistan, the military said. Four more children and two adults still awaited rescue as night fell.The military said in a statement that the rescue mission was still underway. Footage on TV stations showed a child in a harness being pulled to safety. The commandos’ rope could be seen swaying in the wind against the mountainous landscape.An expert described the rescue as extremely delicate because the wind generated by the helicopter blades could further weaken the remaining cables holding the car aloft.Relatives of those trapped prayed while anxiously watching the operation unfold. The rescue also transfixed the country as Pakistanis crowded around televisions in offices, shops, restaurants and hospitals.According to Pakistani TV stations, some of those ...

Massachusetts police misconduct database sheds light on discipline used by agencies

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:11:38 GMT

More than a quarter of the cops whose disciplinary records are listed in a state database received a suspension of between one and five days for their misconduct, according to data released Tuesday.The disciplinary records database maintained by the Peace Officer Standards and Training Commission details thousands of allegations of misconduct against officers, the disciplinary outcomes, and some details of the incidents.It offers a first glimpse at the backgrounds of local police officers and allows the public to scrape data to glean more information on bad behavior dating back to December 1984 through Jan. 31.Roughly 17% of police officers listed in the database received a written reprimand for their alleged misconduct. Another 12% got a written warning or letter of counseling and just over 9% were subject to retraining, according to the database.Less than 1% of officers in the database were demoted or offered a last chance agreement and just over 5% were handed a suspension of bet...

Maxine Hong Kingston, bell hooks among those honored by Ishmael Reed’s Before Columbus Foundation

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:11:38 GMT

NEW YORK (AP) — Maxine Hong Kingston, Darryl Pinckney and the late bell hooks were among the authors honored this year by the Before Columbus Foundation, a nonprofit co-founded by Ishmael Reed that celebrates multicultural literature.Established in 1976, the Before Columbus Foundation each year presents American Book Awards to both fiction and nonfiction writers. Kingston, best known for her memoir “The Woman Warrior,” received a lifetime achievement prize. Pinckney was cited for his memoir “Come Back in September,” and hooks, who died in 2021, was given a special award for criticism. On Tuesday, the foundation also announced awards for Ayanna Lloyd Banwo’s novel “When We Were Birds,” Leila Mottley’s “Nightcrawling: A Novel,” Everett Hoagland’s poetry collection “The Ways” and Bojan Louis’ “Sinking Bell: Stories.” Other winners included Edgar Gomez’s memoir “High Risk Homosexual”; Aidan Levy’s biography of jazz great Sonny Rollins, “Saxophon...

Local news is a calling for ex-BBC reporter informing N.W.T. and beyond about fires

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:11:38 GMT

As thousands of terrified people packed up their belongings last week after an evacuation order in Yellowknife, N.W.T., local news site Cabin Radio was providing line-by-line, minute-by-minute updates on where to go and what to expect.Ollie Williams, a former BBC sports reporter, wrote many of those lines from inside a pickup truck on which sat a satellite dish held steady by heavy bags of dog food. He was fleeing, too.He helped launch Cabin Radio in 2017, a few years after he moved to Yellowknife, the capital of the Northwest Territories, with a woman he met while covering the 2010 Vancouver Olympics.On Sunday night, as he spoke from an inn about 630 kilometres away in Fort Simpson, N.W.T., he had no regrets.“If I wasn’t doing the reporting I think I would have probably have struggled a lot more, mentally,” he said in an interview. “The job that I have is one that I love. I built myself a journalism role that was custom-designed to be one that I wanted to do...

Hudson’s Bay revamps rewards program with app, personalized offers and quests

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:11:38 GMT

TORONTO — Hudson’s Bay hopes to capture customer interest with a revamped loyalty program that includes a new app and personalized offers.The Toronto-based department store chain said Tuesday that the changes to its rewards offering are meant to refresh the program to better meet current shopping habits.“Hudson’s Bay was one of the first to introduce a rewards program in Canada, and since then we have seen tremendous change in how people are shopping, how they are prioritizing their purchases, and what they are looking for in a loyalty program,” said Kevin Parry, Hudson’s Bay’s vice-president of credit and loyalty, in a statement.“We wanted to level up our rewards game.”The program comes amid the effects of stubbornly high inflation, increasingly pushing shoppers to seek out deals amid higher price sensitivity.The rewards program will be structured around three tiers shoppers can work their way through, earning more points and faster with each level.Shoppers start ...

Events at Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant since the 2011 earthquake, tsunami and nuclear disaster

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:11:38 GMT

TOKYO (AP) — Japanese officials plan to start releasing treated but still slightly radioactive wastewater from the wrecked Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant into the Pacific Ocean as early as Thursday, 12 years after a massive earthquake and tsunami caused the meltdowns of three of its reactors and the continuing leakage of cooling water. Here is a timeline of events:— March 11, 2011: A magnitude 9.0 earthquake strikes off the coast of northeastern Japan, triggering a towering tsunami that smashed into the Fukushima nuclear plant, knocking out power and cooling systems and triggering meltdowns in three reactors.— March 12, 2011: A hydrogen explosion occurs at the plant’s No. 1 reactor, sending radiation into the air. Residents within a 20-kilometer (12-mile) radius are ordered to evacuate. Similar explosions occur at the two other damaged reactors over the following days. — April 4, 2011: The plant operator releases more than 10,000 tons of low-level radioactive water into the s...

Accused in Quebec daycare bus crash that killed two kids has case postponed

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:11:38 GMT

MONTREAL — The court case of a Quebec man accused of killing two young children by driving a city bus into a Montreal-area daycare was postponed on Tuesday, as a prosecutor requested more time to finish disclosing evidence.Pierre Ny St-Amand was arrested after a city bus crashed into the front of a daycare in the Ste-Rose neighbourhood of Laval, Que., on Feb. 8, killing two four-year-olds and injuring six other children. The 51-year-old former city bus driver was charged with two counts of first-degree murder as well as seven other charges, including attempted murder and aggravated assault.Quebec court Judge Carol Richer put off the case to Sept. 26, after the Crown said it needed more time for the disclosure of evidence. The case has been postponed several times, including at the least hearing in June. Speaking after the brief court hearing, both the Crown and defence said the extensions were not unusual in a case this complex.Defence lawyer Julien Lespérance Hudon said there was a...

Former Mississauga camp counsellor accused of abusing dozens of children released on bail

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:11:38 GMT

A former Mississauga camp counsellor accused of sexually assaulting children and making child pornography was released on bail Tuesday.Alexander Clarke, 26, will be on house arrest with GPS monitoring while his case proceeds with strict conditions regarding the use of personal electronic devices.His parents are his sureties.Clarke was initially charged with child pornography offences in early August, 2023 after police alleged he filmed a six-year-old while the child used the washroom at MC Day Camp in the Lakeshore Road East and Hurontario Street area between December 2022 and July 2023.A few weeks later Clarke was charged with more offences after police said 22 child victims had been identified through further investigation.Clarke, who had been a camp counsellor volunteer since June 2018, was charged with seven new counts of sexual assault and sexual interference, 11 counts of making child pornography, one count of possessing child pornography and one count of forcible confinement....

Tropical Storm Harold makes landfall on Texas coast. It is expected to bring rain along the border

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:11:38 GMT

PADRE ISLAND, Texas (AP) — Tropical Storm Harold made landfall on the South Texas coast Tuesday, where it is expected to bring wind gusts of up to 50 mph (80 kmh) in areas along the U.S.-Mexico border. Forecasters said Tuesday that the storm is expected to produce 2 to 4 inches (5 to 10 centimeters) of rain with some isolated amounts of up to 6 inches (15 centimeters) in South Texas through Wednesday. In Mexico, 4 to 6 inches (10 to 15 centimeters) of rain was forecast with isolated areas expected to receive up to 10 inches (25 centimeters) in the state of northern Coahuila and northern Nuevo Leon through Wednesday. On the other side of the U.S., Hilary, the first tropical storm to hit Southern California was pushing across the Southwest toward the Rocky Mountains, where crews worked to rescue nursing home residents trapped by mud and water.Hilary first slammed ashore on Mexico’s arid Baja California Peninsula as a hurricane, causing one death and widespread flooding before becoming...

Music Review: Ashnikko gets down and dirty in a dystopian fantasy world on ‘WEEDKILLER’

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:11:38 GMT

Ashnikko, “WEEDKILLER” (Warner Music UK Limited)Are all you girls, gays and theys out there feeling a little fed up? Maybe more than a little? Ashnikko is, too.The blue-haired singer-songwriter, rapper and producer born Ashton Nicole Casey, who rose to fame with her 2019 TikTok-viral hit “STUPID”, is known by her growing fanbase for filter-less anthems of empowerment and sexual liberation. The artist, who uses the pronouns she and they, evolves from her demidevil alter ego into a dystopian fantasy world fairy creature on her debut studio album, the concept record “WEEDKILLER.” This delightfully dark 13-track full-length is feminine rage unleashed in the magical universe created by Ashnikko, as seen in her full-realized music videos and heard on the album’s first track, “World Eater.” In the eerie opener, Ashnikko embodies a ruthless cyborg in a post-apocalyptic wasteland where the enemies are machines.She gets gross and gory with following tracks “You Make Me Sick” and “Worms,...