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Nasty Boston redistricting fight is back — now in federal court

Published Fri, 27 Dec 2024 13:23:02 GMT

The City Council’s dirty laundry is back flapping in the wind, this time in federal court, as what will be a multi-day hearing kicked off over whether a judge should step in and scrap the new Boston redistricting map.City Councilor Michael Flaherty on Tuesday spent around three hours on the stand as a witness for the plaintiffs — who are technically suing him in the case of Walters et al v the Boston City Council in an effort to scuttle the map the body passed in November.“Basically all the rules were out the door,” said Flaherty of the stretch run of the redistricting process.The redistricting cycle that will never die continues, for now, in the arguments in this case.Basically, the plaintiffs — a handful of people who live in the districts around which the two sides are at odds — are arguing that in the deliberations, the council focused on racial makeups in the South Boston, Dorchester and Mattapan districts in a way that was inappropriate and that there were some procedural viol...

Their stories were lost to slavery. Now DNA is writing them

Published Fri, 27 Dec 2024 13:23:02 GMT

CHARLESTON, S.C. (AP) — In the 1700s, a boy was born into slavery in Colonial America. He spent his life working in the coastal city of Charleston, South Carolina. And when he died in middle age, he was buried alongside 35 other slaves.That’s the likely history that researchers have uncovered for the man — there’s no written record for him or the others buried at the long-forgotten site. Their names have been lost, along with any details of their lives. But their stories are now being told through what was left behind: bones, teeth and, especially, DNA.In recent decades, advances in DNA research have allowed scientists to use ancient remains and peer into the lives of long-dead people. In Charleston, that’s meant tracing some of the African roots that were cut off by slavery. “We’re bringing their memory back to life,” said Raquel Fleskes, an anthropologist at the University of Connecticut who studied the remains. “This is a way of restoring dignity to individuals ...

3 dead, 13 missing in Caribbean sinking; 14 Africans saved

Published Fri, 27 Dec 2024 13:23:02 GMT

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) — At least 14 people from the African nation of Cameroon were rescued from waters in the eastern Caribbean early Tuesday after their boat capsized, but three people were dead and 13 others missing, authorities on Antigua said.The group had departed Antigua early Tuesday aboard a boat carrying 32 passengers that apparently was en route to the U.S. Virgin Islands when it sank near the island of St. Kitts, authorities said at a news conference. They said the group had been staying on the French Caribbean island of Guadeloupe, but left there a week ago for Antigua.“My government has been making every effort to be helpful to these brothers and sisters from Africa who were marooned on Antigua, including by granting them residence and the opportunity to work,” Antigua Prime Minister Gaston Browne said.He said the Cameroonians apparently arrived in Antigua as tourists but intended to migrate to other countries. Browne said his administration has contacted the U.N....

McConnell opposes as Senate nears repeal of Iraq war powers

Published Fri, 27 Dec 2024 13:23:02 GMT

WASHINGTON (AP) — Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell says he opposes repeal of the 2002 and 1991 authorizations of force against Iraq, arguing that that authority “bears directly on the threats we face today in Iraq and Syria from Iran-backed terrorists.” McConnell, who is home recovering from a fall earlier this month, is weighing in for the first time as the Senate is poised, as soon as Wednesday, to repeal the decades-old authority for the Iraq war. While supporters say the repeal would reinforce today’s strategic partnership between Iraq and the United States, McConnell and other Republican opponents say a withdrawal of those war powers would project U.S. weakness in the Middle East and embolden Iran and other terrorist groups. “I am opposed to Congress sunsetting any military force authorizations in the Middle East,” McConnell said. “Our terrorist enemies aren’t sunsetting their war against us. And when we deploy our servicemembers in harm’s way, we need to supply them wi...

Daughter: Mississippi tornado victim was ‘beautiful soul’

Published Fri, 27 Dec 2024 13:23:02 GMT

ROLLING FORK, Miss. (AP) — With her sister behind the wheel, Queen’terica Jones rushed across the flat Mississippi Delta as a powerful tornado bore down on their mother’s home. The howling winds lifted the rear of their car off the ground and slammed them into a churchyard.They arrived too late. The tornado had already killed their mother, ruined her home and devasted the town of Rolling Fork. With no electricity, survivors used cellphone flashlights to pick through the wreckage. Jones said she found her mother’s lifeless body face-down in the yard, bloodied by nails that struck her head.“I wouldn’t wish this pain upon nobody, not even an enemy,” Jones said Tuesday.Her mother, Erica Moore, worked as a personal care assistant and is survived by six children. She was “a beautiful soul” who loved to pray and help people, Jones said.“She was amazing. A sweetheart,” Jones said. “I mean, ain’t nobody perfect. Everybody goes through something, but our mom — everybod...

Hot Docs film festival to spotlight Inuit rights, Lac Mégantic, Canucks riot

Published Fri, 27 Dec 2024 13:23:02 GMT

TORONTO — This year’s Hot Docs festival will open with an intimate look at Inukactivist and lawyer Aaju Peter and her work to defend the human rights of Indigenous Peoples of the Arctic.The Denmark-Canada-Greenland co-production “Twice Colonized” is helmed by Danish director Lin Alluna and produced by Iqaluit filmmaker Alethea Arnaquq-Baril and Denmark’s Emile Hertling Péronard.Arnaquq-Baril said she’s known Peter since she was a little girl, noting Peter was born in Greenland and moved to Canada as a young adult.“In Canada, we’ve been having the beginnings of a reckoning with the colonization of Indigenous Peoples. I just found it really interesting that a young Danish woman wanted to confront her own country with the questions that we’re talking about here,” said Arnaquq-Baril, who has been making documentaries for about 20 years. “I think the film is starting at a point of the conversation about reconciliation where we currently are,” said Arnaquq-Ba...

‘It’s really sad’: Neighbour describes chaotic scene after Calgary house explosion

Published Fri, 27 Dec 2024 13:23:02 GMT

CALGARY — Rima Rifai thought her furnace had exploded Monday when the house across the street burst into a ball of fire, sending 10 people to hospital with serious injuries.When she opened the front door to the street, Rifai saw the home her neighbour has lived in for 20 years was destroyed.“The whole top of the house was completely blown off and there were all of these people coming out of the house,” Rifai said in an interview Tuesday outside her home in the neighbourhood east of downtown.“There was a gentleman actually right between these two vehicles here. You could tell after the explosion he had made it out first and he was just wandering the streets in absolute shock.”The explosion also damaged several other homes and sent part of the roof of the house that blew up into a yard across the street.Calgary Emergency Medical Services has said all the victims were adults. Six had life-threatening injuries and four were seriously hurt. Rifai and her neighbour...

$491B federal budget invests heavily in green economic transformation

Published Fri, 27 Dec 2024 13:23:02 GMT

OTTAWA — Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland’s 2023 federal budget promises “transformative investments” in Canada’s green economy as the country tries to maintain its place in the global clean tech revolution and realign its supply chains toward allies who won’t use energy as a political weapon.“Together these two great shifts represent the most significant opportunity for Canadian workers in the lifetime of anyone here today,” Freeland said Tuesday in the House of Commons, according to her prepared remarks.She is also using the budget to provide another top-up of the GST rebate to low-income Canadians feeling the pinch of inflation, continue to fulfil parts of the Liberal supply-and-confidence deal with the NDP and react to some of the political fires burning around the Liberals in recent weeks and months, including adding some money to combat foreign interference.The 2023-24 spending plan will cost $491 billion, with $8 billion in new prog...

Biden: GOP policies would surrender tech economy to China

Published Fri, 27 Dec 2024 13:23:02 GMT

DURHAM, North Carolina (AP) — President Joe Biden said Tuesday that Republicans’ ideas for cutting the budget could undermine U.S. manufacturing and help China dominate the world economy.Speaking at a semiconductor maker in North Carolina to highlight his own policies, Biden is trying to shape public sentiment as he faces off with House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., about whether the federal government should raise its legal borrowing capacity. McCarthy sent a letter Tuesday saying that talks should start about possible spending cuts in return for the debt limit increase. Biden has said Republicans need to put forth their own budget plan before negotiations start. Without an agreement, the federal government could default on its financial obligations. The president tried to ratchet up pressure on Tuesday by saying that the GOP demands on the budget would only empower China, the country’s key geopolitical rival. Being tough on China has been a core part of the identit...

Quick quotes from the release of Canada’s 2023 federal budget

Published Fri, 27 Dec 2024 13:23:02 GMT

OTTAWA — The federal Liberals released their 2023-24 budget on Tuesday.Here are some quotes about the spending plan from the finance minister, opposition leaders and the head of the Assembly of First Nations. ———Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland:“We are reducing government spending while taking great care not to reduce the services and direct support that Canadians rely on.”—“By exercising fiscal restraint, we’re ensuring that we can continue to invest in Canadians and in the Canadian economy for years to come, just as we have done since 2015.”—“I am ready to take on anyone in this room or outside this room who wants to challenge the idea that we needed to make a targeted and temporary investment in affordability for Canadians. It’s something we needed to do; there are vulnerable people in Canada who need that support.”—“I am so proud to announce the creation of a new Canadian Dental Care Plan. By the end of this year, by the en...