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Boris Johnson ‘exhausting’ to work with, top aides’ pandemic WhatsApps show

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:22:36 GMT

LONDON — Boris Johnson’s senior aides were “exhausted” from dealing with him during the early days of the coronavirus pandemic, Britain’s public inquiry into the outbreak heard Tuesday.Testimony revealed in Britain’s COVID-19 probe shows that both Lee Cain and Dominic Cummings — who served as Johnson’s director of communications and chief adviser respectively — expressed deep frustration with the then-prime minister’s handling of coronavirus as it gripped the U.K. in March 2020. In WhatsApp messages sent on March 19, 2020 — which were shown to the inquiry Tuesday — Cummings told Cain that he had been forced to “sit here for 2 hours just to stop [Johnson] saying stupid shit.”“I’ve literally said same thing ten f*cking times and he still won’t absorb it. I’m exhausted just talking to him and stopping the trolley,” Cummings texted.“I’m exhausted with him,” Cain replied. In March 2020, ...

Gallery: Bruins beat Panthers 3-2 in OT

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:22:36 GMT

Pavel Zacha topped off the electric comeback with the winner with 1:24 left in overtime to lift the B’s to a 3-2 win over the Florida Panthers

6 arrested in Toronto as Pro-Palestinian demonstrators stage sit-ins at MP offices

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:22:36 GMT

A number of protesters were arrested in Toronto on Monday as Pro-Palestinian demonstrators staged sit-ins at federal politicians offices across the country.The Palestinian Youth Movement coordinated the sit-ins at the offices of 17 MPs in a dozen Canadian cities. The staged rallies saw demonstrators calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza as they provided a list of demands for the federal government.In addition to the end of military action in Gaza, Dalia Awwad, a member of the group, says they are demanding “an end of Canadian complicity in the crimes Israel is committing in Palestine.”Toronto police say six people were arrested for trespassing on Monday afternoon at the office of Justice Minister Arif Virani near Bloor and Dundas streets in the High Park area. Police say the people who were arrested were removed from the premises and released with a provincial offence notice for trespassing.The constituency office of Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland, near Bloor St...

Visitors will be allowed in Florence chapel’s secret room to ponder if drawings are Michelangelo’s

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:22:36 GMT

FLORENCE, Italy (AP) — Just four at a time, visitors soon will be allowed access to a long-hidden space inside Florence’s Medici Chapel where delicate charcoal drawings sketched on the walls have been attributed by some experts to Michelangelo.The secret room — a tiny 10-by-3 meters (33-by-10 feet) space — was discovered in 1975, when officials were searching for a new exit from the Medici Chapel to accommodate increasing visitors.The museum’s then-director Paolo Dal Poggetto “firmly believed that they were by Michelangelo,’’ said the current director, Paola D’Agostino. A fierce debate ensued, and continues to this day.“The major scholars of Michelangelo’s drawings dismissed the attributions” at the time of discovery 50 years ago, she said. “Others had a more moderate view, in the sense they tough that some could be by Michelangelo and others could be by followers. So the debate is ongoing.”The room was used to store coal until 1955, and then sealed closed and forgotten ...

US wages rose at a solid pace this summer, posing challenge for Fed’s inflation fight

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:22:36 GMT

WASHINGTON (AP) — Wages and benefits grew at a slightly faster pace in the July-September quarter than the previous three months, a benefit for workers but a trend that also represents a risk to the Federal Reserve’s fight against inflation. Compensation as measured by the Employment Cost Index increased 1.1% in the third quarter, down from a 1% rise in the April-June quarter, the Labor Department said Tuesday. Compared with a year ago, compensation growth slowed to 4.3% from 4.5% in the second quarter. Still, that is faster than the rate of inflation, suggesting Americans saw an increase in their purchasing power after pay trailed inflation for much of 2021 and 2022. Fed officials consider the ECI one of the most important measures of wages and benefits because it measures how pay changes for the same mix of jobs, rather than average hourly pay, which can be pushed higher by widespread layoffs among lower-income workers, for example. Growth in pay and benefits, as measured by...

Will MAiD changes give drug users access to assisted death?

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:22:36 GMT

In today’s Big Story Podcast, it can be difficult to sort fact from fiction, or anecdotes from data, when it comes to a subject like assisted dying. The topic itself is so emotional. The stories of those who don’t qualify or from family left behind, can be heartbreaking. And the terms and conditions used to assess someone’s eligibility for the process are complex and opaque.All of that is an environment ripe for misinformation — or for potential disasters to be imagined. Jocelyn Downie is a Professor Emeritus at the Faculties of Law and Medicine at Dalhousie University. She works at the intersection of health care ethics, law, and policy. “You can make it seem like the sky is falling by talking about people having access to MAiD, as if all people with substance use problems are having access to MAiD. That’s not true. And you get people concerned.”Next year, restrictions on the MAiD law will fall away, allowing mental illness to be a sole condition for MA...

BHP approves $6.4B second stage of Jansen potash project in Saskatchewan

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:22:36 GMT

TORONTO — BHP says it has approved a plan to spend $6.4 billion for the second stage of its Jansen potash mine that it is developing in Saskatchewan.The decision comes as the company is still building the first stage of the project, which is expected deliver first production in 2026.The company says the first stage is 32 per cent complete and on schedule.BHP says the additional investment will make Jansen one of the world’s largest potash mines, doubling production capacity to about 8.5 million tonnes per year.The company says the decision to go ahead with the second stage while it is still building the first stage will allow it to take advantage of the current project team and continued use of existing contractors.BHP also says it will mean reduced overhead and savings on mobilization and demobilization costs. This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 31, 2023.The Canadian Press

2 die in Bangladesh as police clash with opposition supporters seeking prime minister’s resignation

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:22:36 GMT

DHAKA, Bangladesh (AP) — Police in Bangladesh on Tuesday clashed with opposition supporters as the main opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party enforced a three-day transport blockade across the country to demand the resignation of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and the transfer of power to a nonpartisan caretaker government to oversee general elections next year.Hasina on Tuesday ruled out dialogue and warned the opposition of consequences if they continue the blockade.At least two people died and scores were injured on the blockade’s first day. The ruling Awami League party warned that the opposition would be confronted if they continue to create what it called anarchy. At least six people including a policeman have died in the political chaos in the South Asian nation since a massive opposition rally on Saturday.The government has been under pressure for months as the Bangladesh Nationalist Party led by former Prime Minister Khaleda Zia has staged anti-government protests. El...

Freedom Under Fire: 5 takeaways from AP’s series on rising tension between guns and American liberty

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:22:36 GMT

In a country shadowed by the threat of mass shootings and neighborhood violence, courts have embraced an increasingly absolute reading of the right to guns. That raises difficult questions about how to protect the full range of freedoms Americans cherish.With nearly 400 million guns in civilian hands, the violence they enable feels to many like a threat to their right to worship in peace, go to school and be safe at home. To many others, an unfettered right to own and carry guns is essential to protecting those liberties.With shooting deaths in the U.S. up sharply, the Associated Press examined the rising tensions between those beliefs and the struggle for answers. Here are the key takeaways from each story:Amendment vs. commandment: Do guns belong in churches?When two pastors rise to their respective pulpits on a Sunday morning, both shoulder a growing weariness about shootings in the world outside their doors. But their views on how to respond are diametrically opposite.“I’m reall...

In a first, MIT trains students to resolve clean energy conflicts

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:22:36 GMT

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. (AP) — As the United States injects hundreds of billions of dollars into clean energy through its signature climate law, known as the Inflation Reduction Act, criticism is growing louder about where, how and whether new development should be allowed.As opposition grows, once-routine regulatory processes are taking several years, if they are completed at all. Some communities are concerned about landscape changes, some property values and others wildlife preservation. Layered on top of these debates is misinformation, which sows doubt and mistrust among developers and communities.A new class at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology offers a glimpse into a novel way of resolving these types of conflicts.MIT is offering a first-of-its-kind course that trains students to be mediators in conflicts over clean energy projects. Supervised by a professional mediator, students work directly with developers, local officials and community members. Students get academic cred...