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Canada says 4 women, 10 children on way home from Syrian prison camps

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 15:34:44 GMT

The federal government says it is bringing home four Canadian women and 10 children from prison camps in northeastern Syria.The Canadians are among the many foreign nationals in Syrian camps run by Kurdish forces that reclaimed the war-torn region from the extremist Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant.The long-anticipated flight to Canada had been expected to bring more people home.Lawyer Lawrence Greenspon reached an agreement with the federal government in January to repatriate six Canadian women and 13 children who had been part of a court action.Greenspon says today that two mothers and three children were not at a designated meeting point and missed the flight.He says he expects Global Affairs Canada will try to locate the five individuals and return them to Canada as well. More to come

Ellie Goulding thinks we all need to be more selfish

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 15:34:44 GMT

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Throughout her career, Ellie Goulding has been candid about the drawbacks of fame. Although she remembers being a self-conscious teenager, Goulding said her struggles with panic attacks, anxiety and insecurity about how she looks were exacerbated in the early stages of her stardom.“I was kind of thrust into this world,” she recalled. “I didn’t really get a chance to sort of do that thing that everyone gets to do where they kind of come out of that teenage phase, like start to find yourself.”But as Goulding gears up to release her fifth studio album, “Higher Than Heaven,” on Friday, the British pop star declared she is done caring about what other people think.“I can’t allow those comments and those opinions to affect me. I can’t. Life is too short,” Goulding said in a wide-ranging interview with The Associated Press. “I think we all need to be way more selfish and stop doing things for other people.”But even as she professes to put herself first more, Gouldi...

Italy’s Berlusconi has leukemia, lung infection, doctors say

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 15:34:44 GMT

ROME (AP) — Former Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi is being treated for a lung infection that is a result of chronic leukemia, his doctors said Thursday, revealing the latest of string of health setbacks for the 86-year-old media mogul. Berlusconi’s personal physician, Alberto Zangrillo, signed off on a medical bulletin that said Berlusconi has had leukemia “for some time” but that the cancer of the blood cells was in a “persistent chronic phase.” The statement was the first official word from doctors since Berlusconi was admitted to Milan’s San Raffaele Hospital on Wednesday. Dr. Fabio Ciceri, who is head of hematology, bone marrow transplation and blood cancer at the hospital, co-signed it. “The current treatment strategy envisions treatment of the pulmonary infection” as well as specialized treatment “aimed at limiting the negative effects” of the chronic leukemia, the bulletin stated.Berlusconi is a media mogul who served three terms as Italy’s premier ...

GOP lawmakers consider expelling Democrats over gun protest

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 15:34:44 GMT

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Tennessee’s GOP-dominated House is preparing to vote Thursday on whether to expel three Democratic members for their demonstration calling for gun control following the Nashville school shooting, an extraordinary move that the chamber has used only a handful of times since the Civil War.Reps. Gloria Johnson, Justin Jones and Justin Pearson are the subjects of the ouster vote. Last week, the trio approached the front of the chamber floor and chanted back and forth with gun control supporters who packed the gallery days after six people, including three children, were fatally shot at The Covenant School in Nashville.Their possible expulsion has once again thrust Tennessee into the national spotlight, underscoring not only the ability of the Republican supermajority to silence opponents, but also its increasing willingness to do so. The move sends a chilling message just as lawmakers grapple with how to respond to the devastating shooting.Even before the House p...

Applications for jobless aid rising but still at low levels

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 15:34:44 GMT

The number of Americans seeking unemployment aid was higher over the past few months than the government had initially reported, reflecting a modest rise in layoffs as the economy has slowed in the face of higher interest rates.The Labor Department reported Thursday that the number of applications has exceeded 200,000 since early February — above previous estimates, though still relatively low by historical standards. The department has revised its estimates of the number of weekly applications for jobless benefits under a new formula it is using to reflect seasonal adjustments. The new formula is intended to more accurately capture seasonal patterns in job losses.For the week that ended April 1, the number of Americans applying for jobless aid was 228,000, the government estimated. That was down from 246,000 in the previous week and 247,000 in the week before that. Using its new seasonal adjustment formula, the government revised up each of those figures by nearly 50,000.“The trend...

Montreal home sales hit new March low, dropping 28% from a year ago: Quebec board

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 15:34:44 GMT

MONTREAL — The Quebec Professional Association of Real Estate Brokers says March home sales hit a new low for the month, but it’s seeing signs that such declines are shrinking.The association says 3,947 homes changed hands last month, a 28 per cent drop from the March before.The association says the month marked the first time since September 2022 that sales fell by less than 30 per cent.As sales fell so did average prices, with single-family homes dropping five per cent to $535,000 and condos declining by the same amount to $381,5000. New listings for the month slid eight per cent to 6,487.The board’s market analysis director says the numbers indicate that Montreal is responding positively to the stabilization of interest rates after their rapid rise.“Although the economic uncertainties are far from over, households, like investors, are increasingly confident and inclined to carry out their intention to purchase a home in a context of stabilized financing conditio...

Stocks slip as they close out a weak, holiday-shortened week

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 15:34:44 GMT

NEW YORK (AP) — Stocks on Wall Street are drifting lower Thursday, threatening to send the S&P 500 to its first losing week in the last four following some discouraging reports on the economy. The S&P 500 was 0.4% lower in early trading, and it’s on pace for a 0.9% loss for the week. The U.S. stock market will be closed Friday for a holiday. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 105 points, or 0.3%, at 33,377, as of 9:50 a.m. Eastern time, while the Nasdaq composite was 0.7% lower. A report on Thursday morning showed that fewer U.S. workers filed for unemployment benefits last week, though the number was still higher than expected. The government changed how it tracks the numbers, which could cause some swings, and the number of workers getting continuing claims for benefits rose to the highest level since December 2021. Thursday’s data followed a string of reports on the economy earlier in the week that were weaker than expected. That included everything from the number...

Met premieres Blanchard’s `Champion,’ an `opera in jazz’

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 15:34:44 GMT

NEW YORK (AP) — When Terence Blanchard’s “Fire Shut Up in My Bones” proved a sell-out hit at the Metropolitan Opera in 2021, general manager Peter Gelb wasted no time lining up the composer’s other opera for the current season.And that set the clock ticking for Blanchard and his collaborators to adapt a relatively small-scale work to the vast resources of the nation’s premiere opera house.“We knew we had only a year and a half, so we immediately went to work,” recalled Michael Cristofer, who wrote the libretto. “We had an opportunity to enhance and expand not just story points but also certain scenes. And you want to use all of what the Met is capable of. We were a bit like kids in a candy shop.”“Champion,” which Blanchard calls “an opera in jazz,” premiered at Opera Theatre of St. Louis in 2013. It’s based on the troubled life of prizefighter Emile Griffith, who knocked out Benny Paret in a welterweight title bout in 1962. Paret never regained consciousness and died 10 days later.G...

Absolute Software cutting 40 jobs as part of restructuring plan

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 15:34:44 GMT

VANCOUVER — Absolute Software Corp. is cutting about 40 jobs as part of a restructuring plan to reduce its operating expenses. The security software company says the job cuts represent about five per cent of its workforce.The restructuring plan also includes office space reductions.Absolute expects to take about US$1.8 million to US$2.8 million in one-time charges in connection with the changes.The costs include severance payments, notice pay, employee benefits contributions and related costs and impairment charges.The company says it expects that the majority of the charges will be incurred in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2023.This report by The Canadian Press was first published April 6, 2023.Companies in this story: (TSX:ABST)The Canadian Press

Fighting in Myanmar sends thousands fleeing to Thailand

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 15:34:44 GMT

BANGKOK (AP) — More than 5,000 people have fled from eastern Myanmar into Thailand in recent days as fighting between Myanmar’s army and armed resistance groups has intensified in the border area, Thai media and officials said Thursday.At least 5,428 civilians, including more than 800 children, crossed the border by Wednesday night from Myanmar’s Myawaddy district to seek refuge in Thailand’s Tak province, public broadcaster Thai PBS reported, citing an unidentified security official.It said they fled as ethnic rebels from the Karen minority, allied with guerrillas of the pro-democracy People’s Defense Force, attacked two Myanmar government outposts near the border. The army’s regular soldiers are assisted by members of the Border Guard Force, composed of militias of ethnic minority groups allied to the military government.Myanmar’s ethnic minorities have been fighting for greater autonomy for decades, but armed conflict in the country escalated sharply after Myanmar’s army ousted t...