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The Gaza Strip gets its first cat cafe, a cozy refuge from life under blockade

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 11:08:52 GMT

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip (AP) — The global cat cafe trend, where people pay to have coffee and hang out with cats, has finally come to the besieged Gaza Strip.In the impoverished Palestinian enclave run by the Hamas militant group and crippled by a 17-year blockade, residents seeking to escape the territory’s troubles flocked on Thursday to the new Meow Cafe — Gaza City’s answer to the quirky concept tried successfully around the world.The cafe’s founder, 52-year-old Naema Mabed, said she envisioned the spot as a unique escape from the pressures of life in Gaza — with its lack of recreational options, a youth unemployment rate of over 60% and frequent rounds of conflict with Israel since Hamas violently seized control of the strip in 2007. At the cozy hang-out, Mabed offers a modest drink service and encourages guests to head straight to the cat corner to pet and play with furry friends. The rules of entry are simple: Visitors must cover their shoes with plastic and w...

Communities spring into action to help N.W.T. wildfire evacuees

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 11:08:52 GMT

CALGARY — Communities receiving those fleeing the Northwest Territories wildfires are springing into action to help.Calgary pet charity Parachutes for Pets says it’s gathering supplies for animals and has reached out to boarding kennels to see whether some can offer space.Melissa David, who runs the charity, says some evacuees may not have taken pet supplies. She says some shelters have also closed their doors and not all evacuation centres are pet friendly,  In Fort McMurray, a city that was ravaged by wildfire seven years ago, residents have also offered help.Michel Labine, who left the territory over the weekend for the Alberta city, says people there have given him and others new clothes at the evacuation centre. This report by The Canadian Press was first published Aug. 17, 2023.The Canadian Press

Britney Spears’ husband seeks financial support, says in divorce filing their split came weeks ago

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 11:08:52 GMT

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Britney Spears and her husband Sam Asghari separated nearly three weeks ago, and he is seeking spousal support and attorneys’ fees in their divorce, according to his divorce filing. Asghari, 29, filed his petition to dissolve his 14-month-old marriage to the pop 41-year-old pop superstar in Los Angeles County court late Wednesday. Like the vast majority of those who file for divorce in California, he cites irreconcilable differences as the reason for the split. The document lists the couple’s separation date as July 28, though reports of the split did not emerge until Wednesday. It says he will try to get financial support from her, while blocking her from getting any from him. And it seeks to have her pay for his divorce lawyers. The filing says the value of Spears’ and Asghari’s assets, and those they own jointly, has yet to be determined. Spears and Asghari had no children together. Email sent to a Spears’ representatives were not ...

Supreme Court to hear appeal from airlines on air passenger rights compensation

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 11:08:52 GMT

OTTAWA — The Supreme Court of Canada agreed on Thursday to hear an appeal from a group of airlines looking to quash rules that boost compensation to passengers for delayed flights or damaged luggage.Air Canada, Porter Airlines Inc. and 16 other appellants argue that Canada’s four-year-old passenger rights charter violates global standards and should be rendered invalid for international flights.The legal action that started in 2019 states that by imposing heftier compensation requirements for flight cancellations or lost baggage, the regulations exceed the Canadian Transportation Agency’s authority and contravene internationally agreed upon rules known as the Montreal Convention.In December, the Federal Court of Appeal dismissed the airlines’ case, with the exception of one regulation that applies to the temporary loss of baggage.The Canadian Transportation Agency and attorney general argue there is no conflict between passenger protections and the Montreal Convention, a...

Red Lake Nation in northwestern Minnesota plans to roll out mobile cannabis dispensary

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 11:08:52 GMT

RED LAKE, Minn. (AP) — The Red Lake Nation in northwestern Minnesota, which opened the state’s first recreational marijuana store this month, now plans to roll out a mobile dispensary.Minnesota Public Radio reported that the dispensary, which will resemble a food truck, will allow the tribe to expand its cannabis business into other markets, but only on tribal lands. “Obviously, there’s some more security concerns that would be involved with a food truck, but very similar to that concept,” Tribal Secretary Samuel Strong said.Mobile dispensaries have also popped up in other states, including New York, where authorities have tried to shut them down because that state’s retail licensing system is not yet in place. The on-reservation NativeCare dispensary saw big crowds when it first opened on Aug. 1, but the long lines have shrunk drastically since then, Strong said. He estimates around 300 customers a day currently visit the dispensary.Business has been so good they’re now open ...

Canadian woman sentenced to nearly 22 years for 2020 ricin letter sent to Trump in White House

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 11:08:52 GMT

WASHINGTON (AP) — A Canadian woman was sentenced to nearly 22 years in prison in Washington Thursday in the mailing of a threatening letter containing the poison ricin to then-President Donald Trump at the White House. Pascale Ferrier, 56, had pleaded guilty to violating biological weapons prohibitions in letters sent to Trump and to police officials in Texas, where she had been jailed in 2019 after refusing to leave a park area as it closed. Her defense attorney Eugene Ohm said Ferrier has no criminal record prior that and is an “inordinately intelligent” French immigrant who had earned a master’s degree in engineering and raised two children as a single parent.But in September 2020, prosecutors said Ferrier made the ricin, a potentially deadly poison derived from processing castor beans, then mailed it to Trump with a letter that referred to him as “The Ugly Tyrant Clown” and read in part: “If it doesn’t work, I’ll find better recipe for another poison, or I might use my gun when ...

UN says it will block road construction that would encroach on a buffer zone in divided Cyprus

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 11:08:52 GMT

NICOSIA, Cyprus (AP) — The U.N. mission in ethnically divided Cyprus said Thursday it will block construction by breakaway Turkish Cypriots of a road that would encroach on a U.N.-controlled buffer zone and likely raise tensions on the Mediterranean island nation. The world body plans to “block or frustrate construction of the road by non-violent means,” said Aleem Siddique, spokesman for the U.N. peacekeeping force, known as UNFICYP. The road would violate the forces’ mandate of maintaining the status quo inside the buffer zone, he added. Work began earlier in the day on the road to connect the village of Arsos in the Turkish Cypriot north with the mixed Greek Cypriot-Turkish Cypriot village of Pyla, just south of the buffer zone and inside the Greek Cypriot south, where the island’s internationally recognized government is seated.The road would give Turkish Cypriots direct access to Pyla by circumventing a checkpoint on the fringes of a British military base, one of two bases that...

US sanctions Russian operatives accused in the poisoning of Putin critic Alexei Navalny

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 11:08:52 GMT

WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. on Thursday imposed sanctions and visa restrictions on four Russian intelligence operatives accused of direct involvement in the 2020 poisoning of Alexei Navalny, a Russian politician and corruption investigator who is one of President Vladimir Putin’s fiercest critics. Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control sanctioned Alexei Alexandrov, Konstantin Kudryavtsev, Ivan Osipov and Vladimir Panyaev. All are operatives of the Federal Security Services, known as the FSB, the main successor to the Soviet-era KGB. Panyaev is reported to have tailed Navalny prior to his poisoning; the others are operatives of the FSB’s Criminalistics Institute, a secret laboratory which is reported to work with poisons. Navalny fell ill on a flight back to Moscow from the Siberian city of Tomsk in August 2020 and was taken to a hospital after the plane made an emergency landing in Omsk. He was transferred to Berlin, where he spent weeks hospitalized in a coma and re...

Metro wants Ontario government to appoint mediator to help end workers strike

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 11:08:52 GMT

Metro wants the Ministry of Labour to bring a government mediator to the table to help bring the nearly three-week-long workers’ strike to an end.Twenty-seven Metro locations in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) have been closed since late July, when 3,700 grocery workers voted to reject a deal.This follows a failed attempt over the weekend to restart negotiations, with the union saying it won’t budge until the grocer puts forward an acceptable offer.“The Metro bargaining committee reached out to the union, Unifor, over the weekend to request a meeting with the employees’ bargaining committee, offering to meet as quickly as Sunday or Monday. The union has unfortunately refused,” said Marie-Claude Bacon, Metro’s Vice President of Public Affairs and Communications.A Metro grocery store is seen in Toronto, Tuesday, July 18, 2023.THE CANADIAN PRESS/Cole Burston“It’s the joint responsibility of Metro and the union to keep trying to negotiate a...

Funeral services held for 9-year-old girl fatally shot by neighbor in Portage Park

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 11:08:52 GMT

CHICAGO — A wake will be held Thursday for the 9-year-old girl who was fatally shot by her neighbor in the city's Portage Park neighborhood earlier his month.Serabi Medina was intentionally shot in the head while outside with her father in the 3500 block of North Long Avenue on August 5. Michael Goodman, 43, is facing a first-degree murder charge and is being held without bail in Medina's death. Docs: 9-year-old Portage Park girl intentionally shot in head after buying ice cream; father tackles gunman Goodman was shot in the face during a struggle with the girl's father following the deadly shooting.Medina's wake will be held Thursday at Rago Brothers Funeral Home, located at 7751 West Irving Park Road. Her funeral will be held Friday morning.A GoFundMe Fundraiser has raised over $53,000 to help cover all funeral expenses.