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EXPLAINER: What is Gaza’s Ministry of Health and how does it calculate the war’s death toll?

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:41:11 GMT

JERUSALEM (AP) — How many Palestinians have been killed in the Gaza Strip since the war between Israel and Hamas started?With Israel besieging and bombing territory at a scale never seen before, arriving at a precise answer isn’t easy. Cell service is spotty. Internet and power are out. Airstrikes have pulverized roads and leveled neighborhoods, slowing rescue work.Doctors scribble on notepads in overflowing morgues and hospital halls, struggling to account for bodies trapped under rubble and tossed in hastily dug mass graves. The chaos has added to the likelihood of errors.Yet the Gaza-based Ministry of Health — an agency in the Hamas-controlled government — continues to tally casualty numbers. It released its first detailed report on the casualties Thursday, giving names, ID numbers, ages and gender for Palestinians it says have been killed. The total toll is 7,028 Palestinians, including 2,913 minors, according to the ministry.The ministry is the only official source for Ga...

Funeral today for Montreal man killed by Hamas in attack on Israel

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:41:11 GMT

MONTREAL — A Montreal man who was killed in Israel during a surprise attack by Hamas earlier this month is being remembered as a hero and a “larger-than-life” personality at a funeral today.A casket draped in the flag of Israel was carried into the packed chapel of a Jewish funeral home in Montreal as the service for Alexandre Look began at 2 p.m.Look’s father, Alain Look, said his son died a hero while protecting others at the onset of Hamas’s attack on Israel on Oct. 7. The 33-year-old was among the hundreds who were killed while attending a musical festival near the border between Israel and Gaza. One of Look’s friends described a man who was exceptionally generous to his friends, family and community.Global Affairs Canada says seven Canadians have died in the current hostilities, while two remain missing.This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 26, 2023.The Canadian Press

B.C. man sentenced to 18 months for 2019 overdose death of 14-year-old Carson Crimeni

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:41:11 GMT

NEW WESTMINSTER, B.C. — A man has been sentenced to 18 months in jail with another 18 months of conditional supervisionafter pleading guilty to manslaughter in the high-profile overdose death of a 14-year-old boy in Metro Vancouver.Justice Kathleen Ker says Carson Crimeni died of acute intoxication from an “exceedingly high” dosage of the drug MDMA sold to him by the man, who cannot be named because he was a youth at the time of the crime on Aug. 7, 2019.Before delivering the sentence in British Columbia Supreme Court, Ker told the gallery that other young people saw Carson in “obvious distress” that day in a park in Langley, B.C.Instead of calling for help, she says they took videos of Carson and shared them on social media, behaviour she likened to a modern-day “Lord of the Flies.”Ker told the court in New Westminster, B.C., that on the day he died, Crimeni had asked a friend to get in touch with the now 21-year-old man in order to buy MDMA.She ...

Miller and Márquez joined by 5 first-time World Series umpires for Fall Classic

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:41:11 GMT

ARLINGTON, Texas (AP) — Bill Miller and Alfonso Márquez will be joined by five first-time World Series umpires when the Texas Rangers play the Arizona Diamondbacks starting Friday night.Miller and Márquez each will be working his fifth World Series. Miller will be the umpire crew chief and would work the plate for a Game 7.Márquez will be at first base in the opener, joined by D.J. Reyburn behind the plate, David Rackley at second, Brian Knight at third, Vic Carapazza in left field and Miller in right, Major League Baseball said Thursday.Quinn Wolcott will be the reserve umpire for the opener and will call balls and strikes for Game 2. He will be followed behind the plate by Márquez, Rackley, Knight and Carapazza.Wolcott, 37, was the most accurate at balls and strikes this season at 96% among umpires working the plate for more than one game, according to umpscorecards.com. Miller was at 94.1%, Knight 94%, Rackley 93.9%, Carapazza at 93.7% and Márquez and Reyburn at 93.5% each.Miller...

A blast killed 2 people and injured 9 in a Shiite neighborhood in the Afghan capital Kabul

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:41:11 GMT

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — An explosion in a mostly Shiite Muslim neighborhood in the Afghan capital Kabul killed two people and injured nine Thursday, a police spokesman said. The cause of the explosion wasn’t immediately known.Video from the scene shows part of a building with its windows blown out, flames billowing inside. Shattered glass and other debris are strewn across the street below.The Dashti Barchi area of Kabul has been targeted in the past by the Islamic State group affiliate in the country, which has carried out major, horrific assaults on schools, hospitals and mosques. The group has also attacked other Shiite areas of Afghanistan in recent years.IS has been waging a campaign of violence that has intensified since the Taliban took power in August 2021.Kabul police chief spokesman Khalid Zadran said the injured were transferred to a nearby hospital and that an investigation team has reached the scene to find out the cause of the blast.Local media outlet Tolo News...

Alberta Premier Smith says International Energy Agency ‘no longer credible’

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:41:11 GMT

CALGARY — Alberta Premier Danielle Smith is calling one of the world’s premier energy research institutions “no longer credible” after it released a report saying fossil fuel demand is likely to peak this decade.Smith says the International Energy Agency no longer does analysis, it points to outcomes it wants and outlines paths to get there. She says she prefers to get her information from private-sector analysts.The International Energy Agency has 31 member countries and works with groups such as OPEC, the G20 and the United Nations in researching its reports, which make headlines around the world.It has conducted research into energy grids, oil markets, technologies and transportation.Its latest report, released earlier this week, concluded that under current government policies, renewables are likely to generate half the world’s electricity by 2030, with three times as much investment going into wind power than fossil fuel generation. Smith made the remark...

Prominent British lawmaker Crispin Blunt reveals he was arrested in connection with rape allegation

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:41:11 GMT

LONDON (AP) — A prominent lawmaker within Britain’s governing Conservative Party revealed Thursday that he has been arrested in connection with a rape allegation.Crispin Blunt, 63, said in a statement on X, formerly known as Twitter, that he was arrested Wednesday and that he has twice been interviewed by police in connection with what he termed “this incident.”Blunt, who has been a lawmaker since 1997 and a former minister, said he was first interviewed three weeks ago when he “initially reported” his concern over an unnamed “extortion.” The second time, he said, was “earlier this morning under caution following arrest.”He added that the arrest was “unnecessary” and that he remains “ready to cooperate fully with the investigation that I am confident will end without charge.”“I do not intend to say anything further on this matter until the police have completed their inquiries,” he added.Blunt’s statement came soon after Surrey Police said they had arrested a man Wednesd...

New York governor dodges questions on who paid for her trip to wartime Israel

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:41:11 GMT

ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) — New York Gov. Kathy Hochul is refusing to disclose who paid for her to travel to wartime Israel last week for a self-described solidarity mission, a trip that her office said is still awaiting clearance from a state ethics board.The Democratic governor and a handful of staff and state police were in Israel between Oct. 18 and Oct. 20, meeting with government officials and families displaced by the conflict, while touring various parts of the country. Hochul, who as governor has no direct role in diplomatic affairs, has sidestepped multiple questions on who funded the trip, with her office saying only that a nonprofit group had pledged to cover the costs. She has said taxpayers paid for her state police detail. “I just said I have to get over there. Follow all the ethics rules and get me there,” Hochul said this week when asked about the trip’s funding, directing follow-up questions to a spokesperson. In an email, Hochul spokesperson Avi Small wrote, “...

‘I know who I am:’ Buffy Sainte-Marie calls Indigenous identity questions hurtful

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:41:11 GMT

Buffy Sainte-Marie, a musician known for decades of Indigenous activism, says she’s always been honest that she doesn’t know the identity of her birth parents ahead of a CBC report expected to question her First Nations ancestry. “I don’t know where I’m from or who my birth parents were, and I will never know. Which is why to be questioned in this way today is painful,” Sainte-Marie said Thursday in a statement.“To those who question my truth, I say with love, I know who I am.”Sainte-Marie, who’s in her early 80s, said she was contacted last month by CBC and called allegations about her identity “deeply hurtful.” CBC’s investigative show “The Fifth Estate” is scheduled to air an episode titled “Making an Icon” on Friday. A description of the episode does not name Sainte-Marie but says an icon’s “claims to Indigenous ancestry are being called into question by family members” and its investigation includes genealogical documentation and historical research.Chuc...

Sudan’s army and rival paramilitary force resume peace talks in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia says

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:41:11 GMT

CAIRO (AP) — The Sudanese army and its rival paramilitary force resumed peace talks Thursday in a new push to end the nearly seven-month conflict between Sudan’s warring factions, Saudi Arabia said.The revived talks between representatives from the Sudanese army, led by Abdel-Fattah Burhan, and the Rapid Support Force paramilitary, commanded by Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, are underway in the Saudi coastal city of Jeddah, the kingdom’s foreign ministry said in a statement. The talks are being brokered by both Riyadh and Washington, the statement said.The RSF and the army both confirmed on Wednesday that they would participate in the talks.Sudan was plunged into chaos in mid-April, when simmering tensions between the military and the RSF exploded into open warfare in the capital, Khartoum, and other areas across the east African nation.The conflict has reduced the capital, Khartoum, and other urban areas into battlefields, wrecking the country’s already dilapidated infrastructu...