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Temporary shelter for asylum seekers closes in Maine’s largest city

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 17:44:02 GMT

PORTLAND, Maine (AP) — Nearly 200 asylum seekers from African countries have traded one temporary home in Maine’s largest city for another Wednesday after a basketball arena that served as a shelter closed.About 10 buses and vans lined up outside the Portland Expo to take 191 occupants and their belongings to motels in Lewiston and Freeport. Both cities are north of Portland.One of the newcomers blew kisses to onlookers in a show of appreciation for the city, which set up the emergency shelter in April after a flood of people arrived — more than 1,600, mostly from Angola and Congo, since the start of the year.Communities around the country have been dealing with growing numbers of asylum seekers, and have braced for more as the Biden administration sought to put in place new restrictions after the lifting of pandemic restrictions on asylum. In Portland, the arrival of newcomers strained city services and coincided with the end of pandemic funding in May, which had allowed many...

Michael Cera grapples with isolation and sibling strife in ‘The Adults’

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 17:44:02 GMT

LOS ANGELES (AP) — When director Dustin Guy Defa set out to make a movie about isolation, grief and familial strife, he wasn’t quite cognizant of the unmistakable ways in which the effects of the coronavirus pandemic were informing his script.Now, however, he concedes that “The Adults,” which hits select theaters Friday, is loaded with obvious inspiration from some of the flashpoints of 2020 — the year he wrote it.“In hindsight, it definitely did,” Defa said of the pandemic’s influence. “I definitely was thinking about the importance of family, even if you have strained relationships.”“The Adults,” which premiered in February at the Berlin International Film Festival and was subsequently picked up by Universal Pictures, stars Michael Cera, Sophia Lillis and Hannah Gross.It tells a poignant story of three siblings with dead parents as they reckon with how to relate to one another now that the simplicity and innocence of childhood is behind them. While visiting his sisters and hometow...

US looks to ban imports, exports of a tropical fish threatened by aquarium trade

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 17:44:02 GMT

The federal government is looking to ban importation and exportation of a species of a tropical fish that conservation groups have long said is exploited by the pet trade.The fish is the Banggai cardinalfish, a small striped saltwater fish native to Indonesia. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration listed the species as threatened under the Endangered Species Act in 2016, saying that the main threats to the fish included harvest for ornamental aquariums.The agency proposed on Tuesday to apply prohibitions under the Endangered Species Act that would make it unlawful to import or export the species in the United States. The proposal followed a 2021 petition from conservation groups that said the fish needs the ban to have a chance at survival.The U.S. imports an average of 120,000 of the fish every year, members of the groups said Wednesday. The species have declined in number by as much as 90% since the 1990s because of exploitation in the aquarium trade, they said.“Toda...

Horrifying execution video recalls darkest days of Mexico’s drug cartel brutality

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 17:44:02 GMT

MEXICO CITY (AP) — A horrifying execution video circulated Wednesday on social media may have recorded the last moments of five kidnapped young men, and has transported Mexico back to the darkest days of drug cartel brutality in the 2000s.Prosecutors in the western state of Jalisco say they are investigating the video, and relatives of the missing group of young friends told local media that their clothing resembled that worn by the men in the video.The most horrifying thing is not just the pair of bound, inert bodies seen lying in the foreground. It is the fact that the youth seen bludgeoning and apparently decapitating another victim appears to be himself the fourth member of the kidnapped group of friends.The fifth member of the kidnapped group — young friends who had traveled to attend a festival in the city of Lagos de Moreno in Jalisco state — may be the body police found inside a burned-out car in the area. The young men went missing Friday in an area known for cartel violenc...

Cleanup after train derailment will close key Swiss tunnel for passenger traffic for months

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 17:44:02 GMT

GENEVA (AP) — Train travelers between north and southernmost Switzerland will have to take the scenic route in the coming months, rail authorities said Wednesday, as the clean-up operation from a freight train derailment last week in the Gotthard Railway tunnel will take longer than expected. National railway operator SBB said 16 cars that jumped the tracks in last Thursday’s derailment remain stuck inside the 57-kilometer (35-mile) long Gotthard Railway Tunnel in the southern Ticino region. No one was injured in the derailment but the damage was considerable. Images from the site showed, among other things, wine bottles strewn along the tracks inside the tunnel.The tunnel is a crucial thoroughfare for goods and cargo, particularly between Germany to the north and Italy to the south. Last year, more than two-thirds of rail freight traffic through the Alps passed through the tunnel, according to the Swiss government.One side of the tunnel — the tube that was unaffected in the derailm...

57-year-old man killed in head-on crash in Hamilton

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 17:44:02 GMT

A man is dead after a head-on crash in Hamilton on Wednesday morning.Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) say the crash happened around 8:20 a.m. on Highway 6 between 11th and 12th Concession.Police say a car was travelling northbound before it entered the southbound lanes and collided head-on with a delivery truck.The driver of the car, a 57-year-old man from Hamilton, was pronounced dead at the scene. The driver of the delivery truck suffered minor injuries.There is no word on the cause of the crash. The investigation is ongoing.“We have been speaking to witnesses,” says OPP Sgt. Kerry Schmidt. “If there are any other witnesses that may have seen this collision take place, please call the Burlington OPP.”Highway 6 is closed in the area for the investigation.

Muslim mobs attack churches in eastern Pakistan after accusing Christians of desecrating the Quran

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 17:44:02 GMT

MULTAN, Pakistan (AP) — Muslims in eastern Pakistan went on a rampage Wednesday over allegations that a Christian man had desecrated the Quran, demolishing the man’s house, burning churches and damaging several other homes, police and local Christians said. There were no immediate reports of casualties.The scale of the violence prompted the government to deploy additional police forces and send in the army to help restore order.The attacks in Jaranwala, in the district of Faisalabad in Punjab province, erupted after some Muslims living in the area claimed they had seen a local Christian, Raja Amir, and his friend tearing out pages from a Quran, throwing them on the ground and writing insulting remarks on other pages. Police chief Rizwan Khan said this had angered the local Muslims. A mob gathered and began attacking multiple churches and several Christian homes, burning furniture and other household items. Some members of the Christian community fled their homes to escape the mob. P...

B.C.-based Carbon Engineering being bought by Occidental for US$1.1 billion

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 17:44:02 GMT

CALGARY — A Canadian company that is pioneering the use of direct air capture technology to remove carbon dioxide directly from the atmosphere has been acquired by U.S. oil company Occidental Petroleum.The US$1.1-billion deal will see Squamish, B.C.-based Carbon Engineering Ltd. become a wholly owned subsidiary of Oxy Low Carbon Ventures, an Occidental company that is investing in a range of new emissions-reduction technologies.Carbon Engineering — which was founded in Calgary by Harvard professor David Keith — has already been working for years with Oxy subsidiary 1PointFive, which is aiming to commercialize the large-scale deployment of carbon capture, utilization and sequestration technology. 1PointFive is currently using Carbon Engineering’s technology to construct what it says will be the largest direct air capture project in the world, in Ector County, Texas.Unlike the more common form of carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology — which captures emissions from industr...

Protesters march through Miami to object to Florida’s Black history teaching standards

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 17:44:02 GMT

MIAMI (AP) — Dozens of teachers, students and activists marched to a Miami school district headquarters Wednesday to protest Florida’s new standards for teaching Black history, which have come under intense criticism for what they say about slavery.The protesters who marched to the School Board of Miami-Dade County objected to new curriculum standards that, among other things, require teachers to instruct middle school students that enslaved people “developed skills which, in some instances, could be applied for their personal benefit.”Gov. Ron DeSantis, who is seeking the 2024 GOP presidential nomination, has repeatedly defended the new language while insisting that his critics, including Vice President Kamala Harris and two leading Black Republicans in Congress, are intentionally misinterpreting one line of the sweeping curriculum.“These new state standards that DeSantis has come up with will not be tolerated in our schools. We will not let our children be taught that slaves benef...

England moves into the Women’s World Cup final against Spain after ending Australia’s run

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 17:44:02 GMT

SYDNEY (AP) — Lauren Hemp didn’t let the Women’s World Cup semifinal match between Australia and England become the Sam Kerr show. Hemp scored to restore England’s lead eight minutes after a superb equalizer from Kerr, and then provided a perfect pass for the clincher as the Lionesses moved into their first World Cup championship game with a 3-1 victory over Australia on Wednesday.The semifinal outcome ended a Matildas run that captivated Australia for almost a month and sent England to a matchup with Spain in the final, where the Lionesses will have a chance to bring a World Cup home for the first time since 1966.Sarina Wiegman became the first coach to lead two countries to the Women’s World Cup final, and in back-to-back tournaments. Her run with the Netherlands in 2019 ended with a loss to the United States.On either side of that, she guided Netherlands to the European title in 2017 and then took over the England squad for its breakthrough Euro 2022 title.“I’m ...