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Nigeria slashes transport fees during the holidays to ease some of the pain of austerity measures

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 20:33:54 GMT

ABUJA, Nigeria (AP) — Nigeria’s leader slashed the fees during the holiday season for several public transport routes in half and offered free train rides starting Thursday, hoping to ease — at least temporarily — some of the economic hardship caused by his government’s austerity measures.Elected in May to lead Africa’s most populous country, President Bola Tinubu has introduced several economic changes, including removing decadeslong gas subsidies. The impact of the measures has worsened the cost of living for millions already struggling with record inflation.Nigeria is a nation of more than 210 million people and also the continent’s largest economy but it suffers from widespread poverty, violent crime and religious extremism. The population is almost evenly divided between Christians, dominant in the south, and Muslims in the north, and Christmas is a national holiday. Information Minister Dele Alake told reporters late Wednesday that the government’s decision on the ...

Federal government to announce $471 million for Toronto in housing deal

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 20:33:54 GMT

TORONTO — The federal government is set to announce nearly half a billion dollar in housing funding for the City of Toronto, according to a senior government source. The source, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss matters not yet made public, confirms a report in the Globe and Mail that Toronto is slated to receive $471 million from the Housing Accelerator Fund.The $4-billion fund is a federal initiative to encourage municipalities to make changes to bylaws and regulations that would spur more housing construction, in exchange for more money. Some of the changes Ottawa has pushed for include denser zoning and faster issuance of permits. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau will be in Toronto this morning to make the announcement alongside Housing Minister Sean Fraser, Toronto Mayor Olivia Chow and others. Including the announcement today, Ottawa has reached deals with 16 municipalities across the country.This report by The Canadian Press was first published Dec. 21, 2023.The...

Saturday night’s Bills-Chargers game on Peacock will not have commercials during fourth quarter

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 20:33:54 GMT

Saturday night’s game between the Buffalo Bills and Los Angeles Chargers already carried significance as the first NFL game to be exclusively streamed on Peacock.The matchup will also feature another milestone as NBC and the NFL announced Thursday morning that the fourth quarter will be commercial free for the first time.NBCUniversal says there will be a 40% reduction in the standard ad time for an NFL game which should result in at least 12 additional minutes of game-related content.Rob Hyland, the coordinating producer for NBC’s “Sunday Night Football,” said there have been discussions about this game since June about how to make it unique and distinct from a regular NBC broadcast.“The limited stoppages are exciting for me as someone that wants to tell the story of the game and have the time to do it,” he said.During one of the two breaks of 2 minutes, 20 seconds, in the fourth quarter, the announce team of Mike Tirico, Cris Collinsworth and Melissa Stark will delve mo...

Ukraine lawmakers vote to legalize medical marijuana and help ease stress from the war with Russia

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 20:33:54 GMT

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Ukraine’s parliament voted Tuesday to legalize medical marijuana, after the war with Russia left thousands of people with post-traumatic stress disorder that many believe could be eased by the drug.The new law, which will come into effect in six months’ time and which also allows cannabis to be used for scientific and industrial ends, passed by 248 votes in the 401-seat parliament in Kyiv. A full breakdown of the vote wasn’t immediately available. The law was proposed by Prime Minister Denys Smyhal.The possible legalization of medical marijuana has long been debated in Ukraine. Many people argued in favor of the benefits the treatment can bring, while others feared legalizing medical marijuana would lead to an influx of drugs on the streets of Ukrainian cities.The debate gained new momentum after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022. The Kremlin’s forces have repeatedly used powerful missiles to blast civilian targets across the country...

Trump transformed the Supreme Court. Now the justices could decide his political and legal future

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 20:33:54 GMT

WASHINGTON (AP) — Donald Trump touts his transformation of the U.S. Supreme Court as one of his presidency’s greatest accomplishments. Now his legal and political future may lie in the hands of the court he pushed to the right. With three Trump-appointed justices leading a conservative majority, the court is being thrust into the middle of two cases carrying enormous political implications just weeks before the first votes in the Iowa caucuses. The outcomes of the legal fights could dictate whether the Republican presidential primary front-runner stands trial over his efforts to overturn the 2020 election and whether he has a shot to retake to the White House next November. “The Supreme Court now is really in a sticky wicket, of historical proportions, of constitutional dimensions, to a degree that I don’t think we’ve ever really seen before,” said Steve Vladeck, a law professor at the University of Texas at Austin. Trump’s lawyers plan to ask the Supreme Court to overtu...

Strong winds from Storm Pia disrupt holiday travel in the UK

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 20:33:54 GMT

LONDON (AP) — High winds from Storm Pia disrupted holiday travel Thursday in northern areas of the U.K. as flights were grounded, train service was suspended or slowed, and ferries stopped running to islands off Scotland’s west coast.A gust of 115 mph (185 kilometers per hour) was recorded on Cairngorm Summit in the Scottish Highlands. Wind warnings for up to 80 mph (128 kph) were in place in northern Scotland and up to 55 mph (88 kph) in northern England and Northern Ireland. There was also an ice and snow warning for the Shetland Islands, where schools were closed.Gusts knocked down trees that blocked roads and struck power lines, causing blackouts to 40,000 households in northeast England, energy company Northern Powergrid said. High winds toppled a truck on a highway in Manchester and tore part of the the roof off an apartment building in Sheffield.The storm hit amid high holiday travel that is expected to peak Friday.British Airways grounded two dozen flights, British broadcast...

Holocaust past meets Amsterdam present in Steve McQueen’s ‘Occupied City’

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 20:33:54 GMT

In Steve McQueen’s “Occupied City,” a young woman with an even voice narrates, with rigorous specificity, Nazi encounters and crimes throughout Amsterdam during World War II. The accounts go address by address, and so does McQueen’s camera.Yet the images that play throughout “Occupied City” are of modern day Amsterdam. In the roving, 4 hour-plus documentary made by McQueen, the “12 Years a Slave” director, with his partner, the Dutch documentarian and author Bianca Stigter, past and present are fused — or at least provocatively juxtaposed.The effect can be startling, stirring and confounding. An elderly woman shifts to country music in an apartment complex where, we’re told, a family was once arrested and sent to a concentration camp. A radio throbs with Bob Marley in a park where German officer once resided in the surrounding townhouses. A boy plays a virtual reality videogame where an execution took place.“It’s almost like once upon a time there was this place called Earth,” McQue...

Hundreds alleged assault by youth detention workers. Years later, most suspects face no charges

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 20:33:54 GMT

CONCORD, N.H. (AP) — Zach Robinson spent decades trying to fight off nightmares about being raped as a child at New Hampshire’s youth detention center. He died last month, still waiting for accountability for his alleged abusers.“I know that I’ll never forget about what happened,” he said in early 2021. “But just knowing it’s out there and getting the relief of getting it off my shoulders I hope will limit the amount I re-live it.”More than a thousand men and women allege they were physically or sexually abused as children at the Sununu Youth Service Center between 1960 and 2019. But only 11 men have been arrested, none in the last 2 1/2 years, despite a state police task force investigation stretching back more than four years.Authorities cite the statute of limitations as one reason for the lack of further arrests. Yet hundreds of cases remain eligible for possible prosecution, according to an Associated Press analysis of 1,100 lawsuits.While New Hampshire’s statute of limitations...

Hungary’s Orbán says he agreed to a future meeting with Ukrainian President Zelenskyy

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 20:33:54 GMT

BUDAPEST, Hungary (AP) — Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán says he has accepted an invitation from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenksyy to hold a bilateral meeting in the future, a potential first between the two leaders since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Speaking at an annual international news conference in Budapest on Thursday, Orbán said he agreed to Zelenskyy’s proposal for a future meeting during a brief conversation between the two leaders on the sidelines of a Dec. 10 swearing-in ceremony for Argentina’s new president, Javier Milei. “(Zelenskyy) said, ‘We should negotiate,’ and I told him I’d be at his disposal. We just have to clarify one question: about what?” Orbán said, adding that the Ukrainian leader requested a discussion on his country’s ambitions to join the European Union. Relations between the two leaders have been fraught as Hungary has repeatedly blocked EU efforts to provide financial aid to Ukraine and ref...

Man wanted for allegedly harassing, following teen girl home in downtown Toronto

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 20:33:54 GMT

Toronto police are looking for a suspect who allegedly repeatedly harassed a girl in downtown Toronto.In a release, police say a teenage girl was talking home from school near Dundas Street West and Beverly Street when she was approached by a stranger who asked her to follow him behind a building.Police say the girl declined and continued walking home but has since seen the same man on the TTC several times.On Monday, police allege the same man followed the girl home from school.Toronto police are looking for a suspect described as a 20 to 25-year-old man, five foot seven to five foot nine inches tall with a slim build. He was last seen wearing a white/grey/black camouflage jacket with a hood, black pants, and black running shoes with white soles.Anyone with information is being asked to contact police.