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Trevor Reed, Marine veteran freed from Russia in 2022, is injured while fighting in Ukraine, US says

Published Tue, 24 Dec 2024 17:54:40 GMT

WASHINGTON (AP) — A former U.S. Marine who was released from Russia in a prisoner swap last year has been injured while fighting in Ukraine, the State Department said Tuesday.Trevor Reed was wounded several weeks ago, according to a person familiar with the situation who was not authorized to discuss the matter by name and spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity. He has been taken to Germany for medical care, said State Department spokesman Vedant Patel.U.S. officials said little about Reed’s injury or presence in Ukraine beyond noting that his activities weren’t on behalf of the U.S. government. But Reed’s decision to take up arms during Russia’s war with Ukraine potentially complicates U.S. efforts to win the release of two other Americans still detained by Moscow, Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich and corporate security executive Paul Whelan. His fighting also risked a potentially dire scenario if he’d been captured and re...

Cabinet shuffle expected Wednesday as ministers announce they won’t seek re-election

Published Tue, 24 Dec 2024 17:54:40 GMT

OTTAWA — With Prime Minister Justin Trudeau expected to shuffle his cabinet as early as Wednesday,a string of Liberal ministers have confirmed they will not run in the next federal election. Fisheries Minister Joyce Murray, Transport Minister Omar Alghabra, Public Services and Procurement Minister Helena Jaczek and Mental Health and Addictions Minister Carolyn Bennett all announced this week that they will not seek re-election. A government source with knowledge of the matter said the cabinet shuffle would happen as soon as Wednesday. They were granted anonymity because they were not authorized to speak about it publicly.Trudeau spent Monday and Tuesday holding private meetings in the capital, while several other ministers cancelled public events — both signs of an impending shake-up.Appearances by Housing Minister Ahmed Hussen, Treasury Board President Mona Fortier and Official Languages Minister Ginette Petitpas Taylor were dropped early this week. The last time Trudeau shuffled h...

S&P/TSX composite ticks lower Tuesday on mixed trading, U.S. markets rise

Published Tue, 24 Dec 2024 17:54:40 GMT

TORONTO — Canada’s main stock index ticked lower Tuesday amid mixed trading results, while U.S. markets moved higher. The S&P/TSX composite index closed down 30.59 points at 20,551.53.In New York, the Dow Jones industrial average was up 26.83 points at 35,438.07.The S&P 500 index was up 12.82 points at 4,567.46, while the Nasdaq composite was up 85.69 points at 14,144.56.In the U.S., earnings season is top of mind for investors as the second-quarter reports roll in, said Ashish Utarid, assistant vice-president of investment strategy at IG Wealth Management. The majority of companies that have reported so far have beat the lowered expectations for the second quarter, said Utarid. “Cost discipline in the first half of the year has been rewarding companies today, even as sales are lower than estimates. This results in an earnings beat, because the bar was set so low,” he said. “They revised guidance lower last quarter, they expected a recession … the market is basic...

Suspects burned getaway vehicle shortly after Brampton homicide: police

Published Tue, 24 Dec 2024 17:54:40 GMT

Peel Regional Police are searching for a group of suspects in a Brampton homicide, with investigators locating the getaway vehicle burned one day after the targeted shooting.Investigators were called to St. Roch Catholic School, located at 200 Valley Way Drive in Brampton, around 9:30 p.m. on Saturday, July 22, for reports of a shooting.Officers located a man who had been shot and was without vital signs. The victim was rushed to a trauma centre and was later pronounced dead.The victim was identified as 30-year-old Anthony Putzu of Toronto.In an update, investigators said they identified the suspect vehicle involved in the homicide as a 2023 Black Nissan Murano with the Ontario licence plate CYJS 166 with damage to the driver’s side.Police said the vehicle was burned in the 8th Line and Britannia Road area in Milton on the morning of July 23.Authorities said there are three suspects believed to be associated with the vehicle, adding that between July 22 at 9:30 p.m. and July 2...

Banc of California to buy troubled PacWest Bancorp, which came close to failing earlier this year

Published Tue, 24 Dec 2024 17:54:40 GMT

NEW YORK (AP) — The Banc of California has agreed to buy PacWest Bancorp in an all-stock transaction, bringing an end to months of speculation about whether PacWest could survive on its own after the failures of three other regional banks this spring. The deal announced Tuesday got help from Warburg Pincus and Centerbridge Partners, two large private equity firms, which are investing $400 million to help shore up and restructure the balance sheet of the combined bank. Centerbridge Partners has a long history as an investor in distressed companies, The deal is a bit of good news for PacWest, the parent of Pacific Western Bank, and its shareholders. The company’s stock has fallen by nearly two-thirds this year on fear that PacWest could be the next bank to fail after the earlier failures of Silicon Valley Bank, First Republic and Signature Bank. Based on Tuesday’s closing prices, PacWest shareholders will receive Banc of California shares valued at $9.60. A year ago the sh...

Outside experts’ last report raises questions about military’s role in disappearance of 43 students

Published Tue, 24 Dec 2024 17:54:40 GMT

MEXICO CITY (AP) — The last report submitted by a panel of outside experts Tuesday raised further questions about the Mexican military’s role in the 2014 disappearance of 43 students. The panelists said they had located photos of two dead bodies with the heads or hands bound in a way that was similar to the method Mexican marines used on other suspects. They also found photos of suspects in the students’ abduction who have not been heard from since they were detained. It has long been acknowledged that prosecutors and military personnel tortured some of the original suspects into confessing; many of those suspects later had charges against them dismissed. The experts were asked in 2015 to investigate the abduction of the students, who attended a rural teacher’s college in southern Mexico, after police, prosecutors and the military botched the investigation into their fate. Corrupt local police abducted the students from buses in Iguala on Sept. 26, 2014, and turned them over t...

Transgender patients sue the hospital that provided their records to Tennessee’s attorney general

Published Tue, 24 Dec 2024 17:54:40 GMT

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Vanderbilt University is facing a class action lawsuit accusing its medical center of violating the privacy of its transgender clinic patients by turning their records over to Tennessee’s attorney general.Two patients sued Monday in Nashville Chancery Court, saying they were among more than 100 people whose records were sent by Vanderbilt to Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti. His office has said it is examining medical billing in a “run of the mill” fraud investigation that isn’t directed at patients or their families. Vanderbilt has said it was required by law to comply.The patients say Vanderbilt was aware that Tennessee authorities are hostile toward the rights of transgender people, and should have removed their personally identifying information before turning over the records.Tennessee has stood out among conservative-led states pushing myriad laws targeting transgender people, enacting some of the nation’s most anti-LGBTQ restriction...

B.C. ranchers struggle as drought sends hay prices soaring

Published Tue, 24 Dec 2024 17:54:40 GMT

British Columbia rancher Suzanne Fradette had just got off the phone with a hay broker who had grim news amid an ongoing drought that has sent feed prices soaring: “It’s bad out there.”“We’ve got a fairly small herd, like 140 head, but we are thinking it’s going to be about $100,000 this year for hay,” said Fradette. That’s a 30-per-cent jump compared to recent years, and a painful price for a relatively small ranch. Fradette runs the Back Valley Ranch ranch with partner Jerry Steves in the Deadmans’ area between Savona and Cache Creek, about 350 kilometres northeast of Vancouver.Fradette said they are just “keeping their heads above water,” getting by one day at a time. Feeding their herd costs about $700 per day. Fradette and Steves aren’t alone in their plight, with drought conditions pushing up feed prices across much of the country. Agriculture Canada’s most recent drought monitor report says 76 per c...

Three found dead at campsite were members of Colorado Springs family who planned to live ‘off grid’

Published Tue, 24 Dec 2024 17:54:40 GMT

The decomposed and partially mummified bodies of three people who were recently found at a remote western Colorado campsite were two adult sisters and one woman’s 14-year-old son, Gunnison County Coroner Michael Barnes said.The deceased are Christine Vance, 41; Rebecca Vance, 42, and Rebecca’s son, all from Colorado Springs. Two were found in a tent down the road from a campsite in the Gunnison National Forest about nine miles (14.5 kilometers) from Ohio City, Colorado, Gunnison County Coroner Michael Barnes said in an interview Tuesday. Officials have not named the son because he is a minor.Their bodies showed signs of malnourishment, with two in the tent and one outside. Though a cause of death has yet to be determined while authorities wait for toxicology reports to be processed, the group may have succumbed to starvation, freezing temperatures or carbon monoxide poisoning from trying to make fire to stay warm, Barnes said.The three likely started camping in July 2022...

House Republicans plan to hold Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg in contempt of Congress

Published Tue, 24 Dec 2024 17:54:40 GMT

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Republican chairman of the House Judiciary Committee is threatening to hold Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg in contempt of Congress for failing to supply documents related to an investigation into supposed censorship by tech companies of conservatives.Rep. Jim Jordan, chair of the Judiciary Committee, said the panel plans to hold a hearing Thursday to vote on a contempt report detailing how Zuckerberg has “willfully refused” to comply with a February subpoena. The measure is likely to pass the GOP-controlled committee. It would then be up to House Speaker Kevin McCarthy to hold a full House vote on the contempt resolution as early as this fall, after the August recess. If the House were to hold Zuckerberg in contempt, the Justice Department would decide whether to prosecute him.Andy Stone, a spokesperson for Meta, said the company has delivered more than 50,000 pages of both internal and external documents to the committee since February. He added that they also have ...