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Climate scientist Saleemul Huq, who emphasized helping poor nations adapt to warming, dies at 71

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 15:54:51 GMT

Saleemul Huq, a pioneering climate scientist from Bangladesh who pushed to get the world to understand, pay for and adapt to worsening warming impacts on poorer nations, died of cardiac arrest Saturday. He was 71.“Saleem always focused on the poor and marginalized, making sure that climate change was about people, their lives, health and livelihoods,” said University of Washington climate and health scientist Kristie Ebi, a friend of Huq’s.Huq, who died in Dhaka, directed and helped found the International Centre for Climate Change and Development there. He was also a senior associate and program founder at the International Institute for Environment and Development in London and taught at universities in England and Bangladesh. He was an early force for community-based efforts to adapt to what climate change did to poor nations.Queen Elizabeth II bestowed the Order of the British Empire on him in 2022 for his efforts.“As a dual Bangladeshi and British citizen, I have been working f...

Colombia veers to the right as President Petro’s allies lose by wide margins in regional elections

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 15:54:51 GMT

BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) — Allies of President Gustavo Petro lost by wide margins in municipal and provincial elections Sunday, in what analysts called a sign of growing discontent with Colombia’s first left-wing government.Candidates for the president’s Historical Pact party failed to win mayorships in any of the nation’s main cities and won governorships in only two small provinces along Colombia’s southern border, according to results released on Sunday night by election officials.Races for governorships were won mostly by candidates from traditional parties on the center and the right, which were beaten by Petro in last year’s presidential election and lost to independent candidates in the last regional elections four years ago.Analysts said Sunday’s outcome threatens Petro’s efforts to get the congress to make significant changes to the nation’s health system and its labor laws.“This sends a message to some lawmakers who were perhaps on the fence about returning to the government,...

Watchdog group says attack that killed videographer ‘explicitly targeted’ Lebanon journalists

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 15:54:51 GMT

BEIRUT (AP) — A watchdog group advocating for press freedom said that the strikes that hit a group of journalists in southern Lebanon earlier this month, killing one, were targeted rather than accidental and that the journalists were clearly identified as press.Reporters Without Borders, or RSF, published preliminary conclusions Sunday in an ongoing investigation, based on video evidence and witness testimonies, into two strikes that killed Reuters videographer Issam Abdallah and wounded six journalists from Reuters, AFP and Al Jazeera as they were covering clashes on the southern Lebanese border on Oct. 13. The first strike killed Abdallah, and the second hit a vehicle belonging to an Al Jazeera team, injuring journalists standing next to it. Both came from the direction of the Israeli border, the report said, but it did not explicitly name Israel as being responsible.“What we can prove with facts, with evidence for the moment, is that the location where the journalists were standi...

Autoworkers are the latest to spotlight the power of US labor. What is the state of unions today?

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 15:54:51 GMT

NEW YORK (AP) — U.S. labor unions are once again flexing the muscles in the national spotlight.The United Auto Workers’ tentative agreements with Detroit’s Big Three automakers could end the union’s six-week strike. Gridlock persists in Hollywood between actors and major studios, while hospitality workers in Las Vegas, Detroit, Southern California and beyond are fighting for better pay and protections.But despite historic walkouts and record contract deals seen this year, there’s a lot stacked against labor organizers. Union membership rates in the U.S. have been falling for decades due to changes in the economy, employer opposition, growing political partisanship and legal challenges.“Even though we’re seeing stronger support for unions, (with) the highest popularity of union favorability in polls since at least the 1960s, translating the worker desire for representation into actual representation is really hard under our current system,” Alexander Colvin, d...

Two hours of terror and now years of devastation for Acapulco’s poor in Hurricane Otis aftermath

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 15:54:51 GMT

ACAPULCO, Mexico (AP) — Estela Sandoval Díaz was huddled in her tiny concrete bathroom, sure these were the final moments of her life, when Hurricane Otis ripped off her tin roof.With it went clothing, savings, furniture, photos and 33 years of the life Sandoval built piece-by-piece on the forgotten fringes of Acapulco, Mexico.Sandoval was among hundreds of thousands of people whose lives were torn apart when the fastest intensifying hurricane on record in the Eastern Pacific shredded the coastal city of 1 million, leaving at least 45 dead. The Category 5 hurricane damaged nearly all of Acapulco’s homes, left bodies bobbing along the coastline and much of the city foraging for food.While authorities were hard at work restoring order in Acapulco’s tourist center — cutting through trees in front of high-rise hotels and restoring power — the city’s poorest, like Sandova,l said they felt abandoned. She and hundreds of thousands others lived two hours of terror last wee...

First Quantum shares sink 28 per cent after Panama announces referendum on mine deal

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 15:54:51 GMT

TORONTO — Shares in First Quantum Minerals Ltd. lost more than a quarter of their value on Monday after the president of Panama said over the weekend that he would hold a referendum on a law that cleared the way for the company’s Cobre Panama mine.The vote on whether or not to repeal the law will be held on Dec. 17 and the results will be binding, the president said Sunday.The decision by the government comes after protesters took to the streets in Panama demanding the government rescind the contract with First Quantum.The referendum brings fresh uncertainty over the company’s operations in the country.The company and Panama’s government reached a deal in March that supposedly ended a long-standing dispute over profit sharing at the mine and included substantially higher payments to Panama. The contract was enacted into law on Oct. 20.First Quantum shares closed $7.96, or 28 per cent, at $20 on Monday on the Toronto Stock Exchange and saw more than five times more ...

CEO John Chen out at BlackBerry as company prepares to divide business

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 15:54:51 GMT

WATERLOO, Bahamas — BlackBerry Ltd. says CEO and executive chairman John Chen will retire from the company at the end of this week.The Waterloo, Ont.-based technology firm says Chen will depart on Nov. 4 and his roles will taken up by Richard (Dick) Lynch, while BlackBerry completes its search for a permanent chief executive.Chen joined BlackBerry in November 2013 with a mission to restructure the company from a smartphone maker into a cybersecurity software and services firm.In recent months, he was working on dividing BlackBerry’s cybersecurity operations from its internet of things business, which he planned to take public.The company also told shareholders it was exploring a range of strategic alternatives to enhance the value they derive from the business, which lost US$42 million in the second quarter of its 2024 fiscal year.Prior to joining BlackBerry, Chen was an electrical engineer who served as CEO of Sybase, a California-based enterprise software company.“It h...

Fiscal and monetary policy rowing in opposite directions, Macklem says

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 15:54:51 GMT

OTTAWA — Bank of Canada Governor Tiff Macklem says fiscal and monetary policy are rowing in opposite directions, making it harder to bring inflation down. Macklem is appearing before MPs on the House of Commons finance committee after the Bank of Canada’s recent rate decision and quarterly economic projections. In response to questioning from Conservative MP Jasraj Singh Hallan, the governor says government spending is working at cross purposes with the central bank’s efforts to bring inflation down.The governor says that according to federal and provincial budgets, government spending aggregate will grow faster than supply in the economy over the next year, adding upward pressure to inflation. The Bank of Canada opted to maintain its key interest rate at five per cent last week, but left the door open to more rate hikes if inflation remains high. The Bank of Canada is expecting the country’s annual inflation rate, which came in at 3.8 per cent in September, to ret...

No change for the Bears at quarterback this week

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 15:54:51 GMT

LAKE FOREST, Ill. — There will not be a change for the Bears at quarterback - and Matt Eberflus didn't even wait till the end of the week to make it official.On Monday, the head coach already ruled out starter Justin Fields for their game against the Saints in Week 9 as he continues to rehab a dislocated thumb. The past two weeks, Eberflus had waited until Friday to declare the quarterback out, listing him as doubtful the last two Mondays.With the definitive announcement this week, rookie Tyson Bagent will get his third consecutive start for the Bears at Noon at the Caesars Superdome in New Orleans. Injured in the second half of the Bears' Week 6 loss to the Vikings at Soldier Field, Fields continues to be classified as "week-to-week" by the Bears. Just like before, there is no sign that the Bears are looking to place the quarterback on injured reserve or an indication that he'll need surgery. "He's progressing, I can just say that," said Eberflus when asked if Fields can grip a fo...

Emails reveal details in Delphi murders evidence leak

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 15:54:51 GMT

CARROLL COUNTY, Ind. -- Amongst hundreds of pages of documents filed with the Indiana Supreme Court are copies of an email chain that confirm the death of an individual involved in leaking sensitive Delphi murders crime scene evidence to online groups. Buried in a 240-page filing are copies of email exchanges between Judge Frances Gull, Carroll County Prosecutor Nicholas McLeland and Richard Allen's original defense team of Brad Rozzi and Andrew J. Baldwin. Richard Allen files brief with Indiana Supreme Court, claiming judge abused power by striking motions from record According to previous reports and an email from McLeland, defense attorney Andy Baldwin informed the judge and the Carroll County prosecutor on Oct. 10 that his former employee had gone into his office sometime in August and taken pictures of sensitive crime scene evidence related to the murders of Abby Williams and Libby German in Delphi in February of 2017. This former associate then forwarded this sensitive info...