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Rishi Sunak fires government aide Paul Bristow over call for Israel-Hamas cease-fire

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 20:55:22 GMT

LONDON — Rishi Sunak sacked a government aide for demanding a “permanent” cease-fire in the war between Israel and Hamas.The Conservative MP Paul Bristow — who until Monday afternoon served as Technology Secretary Michelle Donelan’s parliamentary private secretary — broke ranks with the prime minister to call for a cease-fire as he warned against “collective punishment” of the people of Gaza “for the crimes of Hamas.”In a letter sent to Sunak last week, Bristow had urged the PM to urge a “permanent cease-fire” to “save lives and allow for a continued column of humanitarian aid [to] reach the people who need it the most.” The letter was reported by the Daily Telegraph newspaper Monday. While the U.K. government has called for humanitarian “pauses” to the conflict, Sunak has short of calling for a full cease-fire, pointing to continued bombing by Hamas from Gaza into Israel.“Paul Bristow has been ...

How Major League Baseball undermined the regular season and the winningest teams, including the Orioles | GUEST COMMENTARY

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 20:55:22 GMT

The trait that separates major league baseball from every other game on earth is the sheer length of its regular season. At 162 games, the baseball season is twice as long as basketball and hockey, and 10 times that of NFL football.For half the year, baseball teams play almost every day. For fans, the ritual of watching games, reading box scores, and following quotidian ups and downs of a team makes baseball an essential part of daily life in a way no other sport can.Ironically, just at the moment that baseball has rightly adopted rule changes, like the pitch clock to bring the sport back to its faster-playing roots, Major League Baseball managed the unthinkable: It made the sacred regular season far less important. How? By preventing teams with the best records from playing any games for a week straight at the start of the playoffs, the most unnatural prison sentence possible for a baseball team.Thus, the three teams (Braves, Dodgers, Orioles) who this year won 100 or more regular ...

Craig Breslow has quick decisions to make on Red Sox free agents

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 20:55:22 GMT

Craig Breslow will be introduced as the Red Sox new chief baseball officer on Thursday, and once those formalities are out of the way he’ll pretty much have to hit the ground running.The World Series could wrap up as soon as Thursday night, and once it does the offseason will rapidly accelerate as free agency kicks off, the trade market re-opens and clubs face a series of important deadlines.First up, free agency and the trade market officially open the day after the World Series ends, but free agents won’t be able to sign with new teams until five days afterwards. That means clubs will have an exclusive window to re-sign their own players.All option decisions must be finalized within that five-day window as well, so Breslow’s first order of business will be figuring out a plan for the five Red Sox players who are either pending free agents or likely to become one.Will they stay? Will they go? Do the Red Sox have any candidates for a qualifying offer? Here’s ...

Massive moose seen at Massachusetts elementary school for morning drop-off

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 20:55:22 GMT

Parents dropping off their kids for school Monday morning got quite the wildlife show.A massive moose was seen strolling by a central Massachusetts elementary school during morning drop-off.“Special visitor in the Naquag Elementary School drop-off line this morning!” the Rutland Police Department posted, along with a photo of the moose on Monday.The moose has since left the area, the police department added.Related ArticlesLocal News | North Atlantic right whale population levels off, but they’re still ‘swimming along the cliff of extinction’ Local News | Cape Cod shark researchers tag 8 great whites during ‘pretty busy’ October, shark spotted 20 yards from shore Local News | A bear in Massachusetts reportedly killed a goat: ‘If you have small domestic animals please take steps to protect them’ Local News | Foxes in Massachusetts caught and injured in illegal animal traps...

Indigenous group wants Buffy Sainte-Marie to lose 2018 Juno over ancestry doubts

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 20:55:22 GMT

The Indigenous Women’s Collective is calling for Buffy Sainte-Marie to lose her 2018 Juno Award for Indigenous album of the year, after a CBC story raised doubts about the singer’s ancestry.The collective says in a statement that it has reviewed the story and believes Sainte-Marie deceived the public about her origin.It says the deception allowed her to benefit from a false narrative that misled thousands of Indigenous people.CBC obtained Sainte-Marie’s birth certificate, which says she was born in 1941 in Stoneham, Mass., to Albert and Winifred Sainte-Marie. Family members in the U.S., including Sainte-Marie’s younger sister, told CBC that the musician was not adopted and does not have Indigenous ancestry.Sainte-Marie, 82, has said she doesn’t know who her birth parents are or where she’s from but calls herself “a proud member of the Native community with deep roots in Canada.'”This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct...

Federal Court dismisses applications against Trudeau’s 2020 firearms ban

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 20:55:22 GMT

OTTAWA — The Federal Court today dismissed a legal challenge to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s May 2020 regulations banning some 1,500 styles of firearms.Justice Catherine Kane says in a decision released today that the applicants raised issues around the matter of guns and public safety but the court only explored the question of whether Trudeau’s cabinet went beyond its powers in passing the regulations.A few weeks after a gunman in Nova Scotia killed 22 people in April 2020, the Liberals announced they were banning 1,500 models of firearms that it considered too dangerous to be society.The Canadian Coalition for Firearm Rights and other gun organizations challenged the regulations in court arguing the government lacked the authority to enact the order-in-council that banned the weapons including the AR-15 and Ruger Mini-14. In her decision Kane says issuing the order-in-council and subsequent regulations did not exceed the power of Trudeau and his cabinet. She also s...

Canadian Solar to build $800 million solar panel factory in southeastern Indiana, employ about 1,200

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 20:55:22 GMT

JEFFERSONVILLE, Ind. (AP) — Ontario-based Canadian Solar Inc. will build an $800 million solar panel factory in southeastern Indiana that will employ about 1,200 workers once production is fully ramped up, the company said Monday.Canadian Solar said it will build the new photovoltaic cell factory at the River Ridge Commerce Center in Jeffersonville, an Ohio River city located just north of Louisville, Kentucky.Production is expected to begin by the end of 2025, with the plant producing the equivalent of about 20,000 high-power solar panels per day, said the company, which is headquartered in Guelph, Ontario.The finished solar cells will be shipped to Canadian Solar’s module assembly facility in Mesquite, Texas.“Establishing this factory is a key milestone that will enable us to better serve our U.S. customers with the most advanced technology in the industry,” said Dr. Shawn Qu, founder and CEO of Canadian Solar.Canadian Solar said it plans to begin hiring for new positions in...

Google CEO defends paying Apple and others to make Google the default search engine on devices

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 20:55:22 GMT

WASHINGTON (AP) — Testifying in the biggest U.S. antitrust case in a quarter century, Google CEO Sundar Pichai defended his company’s practice of paying Apple and other tech companies to make Google the default search engine on their devices, saying the intent was to make the user experience “seamless and easy.’’The Department of Justice contends that Google — a company whose very name is synonymous with scouring the internet — pays off tech companies to lock out rival search engines to smother competition and innovation. The payments came to more than $26 billion in 2021, according to court documents the government entered into the record last week.Google counters that it dominates the market because its search engine is better than the competition.Pichai, the star witness in Google’s defense, testified Monday that Google’s payments to phone manufacturers and wireless phone companies were partly meant to nudge them into making costly security upgrades and other improvem...

Prosecutor takes aim at Sam Bankman-Fried’s credibility at trial of FTX founder

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 20:55:22 GMT

NEW YORK (AP) — A prosecutor began cross-examining Sam Bankman-Fried at a New York City trial on Monday, attacking his credibility by highlighting public statements he made before and after the FTX cryptocurrency exchange he founded filed for bankruptcy late last year when it could no longer process billions of dollars in withdrawals.Assistant U.S. Attorney Danielle Sassoon confronted Bankman-Fried with instances in which he’d promised customers that their assets would be safe and that they could demand those assets to be returned at any time.Repeatedly, Bankman-Fried answered the series of questions with a rapid “Yep.”Bankman-Fried, 31, has been on trial for the past month on charges that he defrauded his customers and investors of billions of dollars. He has pleaded not guilty to charges that carry a potential penalty of decades in prison.The California man gained a level of fame from 2017 to 2022 as he created the Alameda Research hedge fund and FTX, building a cryptocurren...

5 arrested during rally at Toronto factory that protesters claim helps arm Israeli military

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 20:55:22 GMT

Five people were arrested as demonstrators calling for ceasefire in Gaza rallied outside a factory in North York on Monday morning.Toronto police say the arrests were made during a demonstration outside the INKAS Armored Vehicle manufacturing plant near Weston Road and Finch Avenue. Organizers of the rally claim the company is helping arm the Israeli military.Police tell CityNews five people were arrested and removed from the premises. They were all released with a provincial offence notice for trespassing.DEMONSTRATION:Weston Rd + Fenmar Dr– At a private business – Demonstrators were asked to leave the property by officers– 5 people were arrested for trespassing, removed from the premises, and released with a Provincial Offence Notice– No reports of injuries^lb— Toronto Police Operations (@TPSOperations) October 30, 2023The group ‘World Beyond War’ say the protest was organized to demand the Canadian federal government call for an immediate...