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Oak wilt found in Canada for first time sparking concern disease could spread and kill trees

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:41:09 GMT

For the first time, federal government officials say a fungal disease called oak wilt has been confirmed to be in Canada — a discovery that is sparking concern about how it could impact oak trees.“At this point, there’s no cure for oak wilt. Once a tree becomes infected, it will die. If it’s a red oak, it’ll die within one growing season. Oak wilt can survive with the pathogen for a little longer,” Nicole Mielewczyk, a plant health survey biologist with the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA), recently told CityNews when asked about the severity of the disease.Mielewczyk said the agency received a pest report from an arborist on May 23 after they were called to remove three dead trees in northern Niagara Falls. A week later a laboratory confirmed it was oak wilt.She said the CFIA has been anticipating the arrival of the disease for years, forcing staff to come up with a response plan once it showed up. The prospect of the disease spreading oak ...

US arrests 4 Mexican nationals in 2022 deaths of 53 migrants found trapped in hot tractor trailer

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:41:09 GMT

SAN ANTONIO — U.S. authorities on Tuesday announced the arrests of four men they say were part of a human smuggling effort last year that ended in the deaths of 53 migrants, including eight children, who were left in a tractor trailer in the scorching Texas summer.Authorities said on the anniversary of the June 27, 2022, tragedy that the four Mexican nationals had a planning role in the smuggling operation, and were aware that the trailer’s air-conditioning unit was malfunctioning and would not blow cool air to migrants trapped inside during the sweltering three-hour ride from the border city of Laredo to San Antonio. When the trailer was opened in San Antonio, 48 migrants were already dead. Another 16 were taken to hospitals, where five more died.It was the deadliest tragedy to claim the lives of migrants smuggled across the border from Mexico. The dead included 27 people from Mexico, 14 from Honduras, seven from Guatemala and two from El Salvador.The driver and another man w...

SiriusXM is shutting down its Stitcher podcast app to emphasize its flagship app

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:41:09 GMT

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Satellite-radio provider SiriusXM said it will shut down its Stitcher podcast app at the end of August in favor of its own SiriusXM app, part of a larger effort to emphasize its own brand.Many of the podcasts featured on Stitcher are already available on the SiriusXM app, and all podcasts on Stitcher “can also be found anywhere else podcasts are distributed,” the company said. SiriusXM Holdings Ltd. does not have exclusive podcasts.The company is sending existing Stitcher users an offer for a free six-month trial of its platinum SiriusXM service, which includes the company’s streaming services for music, sports and sports talk, other talk shows and news.No layoffs are planned as part of the change. Stitcher, which SiriusXM acquired in 2020 for $325 million, has emphasized the simplicity of its app, noting on its website that it was “designed for podcasts and nothing else.” Its app and website had a combined 900,000 unique visitors as of March, according to...

David Corenswet, Rachel Brosnahan cast as Superman and Lois Lane in James Gunn movie

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:41:09 GMT

James Gunn has found his new Superman and Lois Lane in David Corenswet and Rachel Brosnahan. The DC Studios co-chair, who is also writing and directing “Superman: Legacy ” for July 2025, tweeted about the casting Tuesday, which a representative from Warner Bros. also confirmed.There has been much speculation over who would fill Superman’s shoes after Henry Cavill’s decade playing the character on the big screen. Corenswet reportedly won the role over the likes of Nicholas Hoult and Tom Brittney. The 29-year-old Philadelphia native starred in Ryan Murphy’s Netflix series “The Politician” and “Hollywood,” as an aspiring actor, and more recently played a theater owner who gets mixed up with Mia Goth’s aspiring actress in Ti West’s “Pearl.”Brosnahan is the more well-known of the two having recently concluded her run leading “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel” for five seasons. Her portrayal of Midge Maisel earned her an Emmy and two Golden Globe awards. Emma Mackey and Phoebe Dynevor were...

Pennsylvania caseworkers ignored years of child abuse, now face felony charges, prosecutor says

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:41:09 GMT

A child welfare agency in Pennsylvania failed to protect children from horrific abuse and neglect, allowing them to languish for years in homes overtaken by animal waste and garbage, a prosecutor said Tuesday as he announced criminal charges against five caseworkers.Three caseworkers and two supervisors at Lackawanna County’s Office of Youth and Family Services in Scranton were arrested on felony charges of child endangerment and failing to report abuse, days after state authorities downgraded the county agency’s license.The caseworkers knew that children were living in dangerous, deplorable conditions, but “instead of coming to the rescue, they chose to walk away,” said District Attorney Mark Powell. In some cases, he said, the workers “falsified reports to make it seem like everything was OK when they knew it wasn’t.”A Lackawanna County spokesperson declined to comment on the allegations — which involve eight children in three households — or whether any reforms were planned...

Bernardo Arévalo, Guatemala’s electoral surprise, makes corruption fight top priority

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:41:09 GMT

GUATEMALA CITY (AP) — Bernardo Arévalo, the surprise of the first round of voting in Guatemala, says the choice in the Aug. 20 presidential runoff is a clear one: Continue living under a corrupt system with his rival or rebuild the country’s democracy with him.In an interview with the Associated Press Tuesday, the social democratic lawmaker said he believes his anti-corruption message resonated with voters. Now he just needs a lot more Guatemalans to hear it.His rival, Sandra Torres, was the top vote-getter Sunday in a field of nearly two-dozen presidential hopefuls and Arévalo was second with neither getting nearly enough votes to win outright, setting up the runoff election between them. But their vote totals were so low they fell below the nearly 1 million null votes cast by disenchanted voters, meaning both candidates have work to do to expand their support.There is no shortage of Guatemalans desperate to see someone bring down the country’s corrupt power structures. For Arévalo...

Audit shows Oklahoma likely misspent millions in federal relief funds

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:41:09 GMT

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — Improper oversight by state officials led to more than $29 million in federal funds being misspent that may have to be repaid to the federal government, Oklahoma Auditor & Inspector Cindy Byrd said Tuesday.Byrd’s office released a scathing audit of about $14 billion in spending made by the state in fiscal year 2021, most of it in the form of COVID-19-relief funds.“Oklahoma has systemic issues that make me very concerned for taxpayers,” Byrd said in a statement following the release of the 250-page audit. “If the federal government decides the state must pay back these questioned costs, you and I will end up paying the bill.“If that happens, gross mismanagement and lack of compliance and oversight will be to blame.”Oklahoma is not alone in having questionable oversight of COVID-19 relief funding. An Associated Press analysis found that fraudsters potentially stole more than $280 billion in federal pandemic-relief funds, making it the greatest grif...

Hundreds of teens takeover Lakeview, destroying neighborhood

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:41:09 GMT

CHICAGO — Hundreds of teens swarmed the streets in Lakeview Monday night, causing disorder and destruction in the neighborhood. It's the latest takeover in the city that has left residents and local leaders searching for solutions. The teen poured off the Chicago "L" train at the Belmont Red Line stop, shutting the roadway for several hours in a scene that unfolded just after 10 p.m. Illinois set to create state run insurance marketplace, rate review "They were jumping on cars, breaking glass, throwing things. I know my personal automobile was used as a bar for people," said a concerned resident who did not wish to be identified. The resident shared video with WGN News that shows kids surrounding a police car, with some evening jumping on the vehicle.The woman said that's when she called 911. “I was told that there was nothing they could do," the woman said. "They were so overwhelmed at the moment that there were just way too many calls coming in."Chicago police officers worked t...

Illinois set to create state run insurance marketplace, rate review

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:41:09 GMT

CHICAGO -- Illinois is set to run it's own insurance marketplace to counter soaring costs of health plans sold on the federal Affordable Care Act marketplace.On Tuesday, Governor JB Pritzker signed into law health care priorities backed by democrats, including a new state-based marketplace and rate review.Illinois residents currently access the federal health care marketplace using a federal platform that the state pays a fee to use it. Under this new law Illinois will transition to a new state platform set to go live in 2026.The governor says the marketplace will cover Illinois residents should federal health care policy change."If Joe Biden were to lose reelection to a Republican then people nationally would lose their health care coverage or lose access to that federal exchange, but they won’t lose access to the Illinois exchange," Gov. Pritzker said.The rate review law, the governor says, is intended to shield consumers and small businesses from premium rate hikes by requiring i...

Over $200B in COVID-19 business loans paid to ‘potentially fraudulent actors’: watchdog estimates

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:41:09 GMT

(The Hill) - The Small Business Administration’s (SBA) oversight office released new findings, estimating that tens of billions of dollars disbursed by the agency through pandemic loan programs intended to help small businesses was paid to “potentially fraudulent actors.” The SBA’s Office of Inspector General (OIG) said in a report on Tuesday that the agency disbursed about $1.2 trillion in COVID-19 Economic Injury Disaster Loan (EIDL) and Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) funds during the pandemic.But the OIG found “at least 17 percent of all COVID-19 EIDL and PPP funds were disbursed to potentially fraudulent actors.” That includes over $136 billion in EIDLs and $64 billion in PPP funds, the report found.The government watchdog said it identified multiple schemes that criminals used to steal taxpayer funds and saw some using the dollars to purchase “luxury homes, gold coins, diamonds, jewelry, luxury watches, fine imported furnishings, designer handbags, clothing, a...