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Curtis ClearSky appointed leader of new industry-supported Indigenous Music Office

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:25:31 GMT

TORONTO — A newly formed national organization designed to support and develop Indigenous musicians has found its leader.Curtis ClearSky, a Vancouver-based entrepreneur and music manager, has been chosen as executive director of the Indigenous Music Office.ClearSky, who is Nitsitapii and Anishinaabe, will establish and develop the operations with the goal of providing “a national voice for the Indigenous-owned music industry in Canada.”The IMO was created with the support of Factor, a private non-profit music organization, the government of Canada and the country’s private radio broadcasters.Its establishment has been guided by an Indigenous music advisory team that includes Indigenous music executives as well as musicians from the community.ClearSky has managed his band Curtis Clear Sky and the Constellationz for nearly a decade and headed the Indigenous Music Circle professional development project in Vancouver.This report by The Canadian Press was first publishe...

Worker falls off roof in west-end Toronto, rushed to hospital

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:25:31 GMT

One person has been rushed to hospital following an industrial accident in Toronto’s west end.Emergency crews responded to the St. Clair Avenue West and Laughton Avenue area, near Davenport and Caledonia roads, just before noon on Tuesday.Police say a worker fell off a roof.Paramedics transported the worker to hospital via an emergency run. The extent of their injuries is not yet known.No further details have been released.More to come. Developing story.

German union calls on train drivers to strike this week in a rancorous pay dispute

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:25:31 GMT

BERLIN (AP) — A labor union representing German train drivers said Tuesday that it’s calling its members out on a 20-hour strike later this week as a bitter round of pay negotiations with the country’s main rail operator gets under way.The GDL union called on drivers, guards and others with Germany’s state-owned railway operator Deutsche Bahn to walk off the job from 10 p.m. Wednesday to 6 p.m. Thursday. Limited “warning strikes” are a common tactic in German pay negotiations.Deutsche Bahn has in the past run much-reduced services during GDL strikes.GDL is seeking a raise of 555 euros ($593) per month for employees plus a payment of up to 3,000 euros ($3,257) to counter inflation. It also is calling for working hours to be reduced from 38 to 35 hours per week without a pay reduction.Negotiations started last week and are scheduled to resume on Thursday. Deutsche Bahn said it has made an offer that amounts to an 11% raise. Deutsche Bahn personnel chief Martin Seiler said ...

Teenager charged with manslaughter in fatal shooting of Ontario man: WPS

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:25:31 GMT

Winnipeg police say a teenager has been charged with manslaughter in the shooting death of an Ontario man downtown Sunday.The Winnipeg Police Service says it responded to a shooting at Bannatyne Avenue near Isabel Street around 8:40 p.m.A man was pronounced dead at the scene. Police have identified the victim as 20-year-old Pharell Asare of Brampton.Police say an injured boy was also at the scene. He was in stable condition.A 15-year-old boy has since been charged with multiple offences, including manslaughter, causing death by criminal negligence, and discharging a restricted firearm.The WPS homicide unit is investigating.

A man convicted in the 2006 killing of a Russian journalist wins a pardon after serving in Ukraine

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:25:31 GMT

A man convicted in the 2006 killing of Russian investigative journalist Anna Politkovskaya received a presidential pardon after he did a stint fighting in Ukraine, his lawyer said.Sergei Khadzhikurbanov was sentenced to 20 years in prison in 2014 for his role as an accomplice in the killling of Politkovskaya, 48. She worked for the independent newspaper Novaya Gazeta and wrote stories critical of Kremlin policies during the early years of President Vladimir Putin’s term, the war in Chechnya and human rights abuses.She was shot and killed in the elevator of her Moscow apartment block, triggering outrage at home and in the West, and emphasizing the dangers faced by independent journalists in Russia. Her death on Oct. 7, Putin’s birthday, led to suggestions the shooting — in which the Kremlin denied any role — was done to curry favor with the president.Four others also were convicted in the killing: gunman Rustam Makhmudov and his uncle, Lom-Ali Gaitukayev, who received life in p...

Amtrak touts proposed Toronto-Chicago rail corridor, as Via tempers expectations

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:25:31 GMT

Amtrak is making a sales pitch to connect its lines in Detroit to Via Rail tracks across the border, hoping to lay the ground for passenger service between Toronto and Chicago.Drew Dilkens, mayor of Windsor, Ont., is touting the economic benefits of the proposal, which would link two of North America’s biggest cities by 2027 as well as 21 other communities in between — 10 of them in Ontario — according to the pitch.Via Rail confirmed it is in private discussions with Amtrak and other partners about the possibility of connecting Windsor and Detroit to re-establish the corridor, but says it is premature to discuss the project in public.While Dilkens said Amtrak and Via would pay for the $44-million project, Via says it has made no funding requests or commitments to finance the undertaking.Amtrak first sought to restore a connection between Toronto and Michigan via the 113-year-old Detroit River Rail Tunnel in 2019, with the US$1.2-trillion infrastructure bill breathing new life ...

Food insecurity worsened last year, more pronounced in racialized families: StatCan

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:25:31 GMT

FREDERICTON — A Statistics Canada study says nearly seven million Canadians struggled with hunger last year.The study says that in 2022, 18 per cent of families reported experiencing food insecurity within the previous 12 months, up from 16 per cent in 2021.It says food insecurity was the lowest in Quebec at 14 per cent and highest in Newfoundland and Labrador at 23 per cent, followed by New Brunswick and Alberta, which both sat at 22 per cent.The study authors define food insecurity as the lack of an adequate quality of diet or sufficient quantity of food.Families where a woman was the main breadwinner were more likely to face food insecurity, and the rate shot up to 41 per cent for homes where women were single parents.The study found homes with a racialized breadwinner reported higher food insecurity compared with a non-racialized, non-Indigenous earner, and this was especially true for Black Canadians.This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 14, 2023.The Canadi...

Blackstock sees ‘imbalance’ between $55M lawyers’ bill, welfare victims’ compensation

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:25:31 GMT

OTTAWA — Cindy Blackstock, one of the people responsible for bringing forward a Canadian Human Rights Tribunal case that led to a historic settlement agreement, says she is concerned about an “imbalance” between what lawyers and victims will be paid.The Federal Court approved a landmark $23-billion class-action lawsuit settlement last month to compensate more than 300,000 First Nations children and their families for chronic underfunding of on-reserve child-welfare services.The federal government and class-action lawyers from five legal firms have since reached an additional $55-million deal over legal fees, which they promised to negotiate as part of the settlement agreement but which has not yet been approved in Federal Court.The lawyers involved in the class-action suit had initially said the federal government should provide $80 million in compensation, but Ottawa argued that was too much.Blackstock says she is concerned about an “imbalance” in compensati...

Suspect convicted of 2nd-degree murder in 2018 shooting of a deputy US marshal in Tucson

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:25:31 GMT

TUCSON, Ariz. (AP) — A man convicted of killing a federal agent in Tucson five years ago could face life in prison when he’s sentenced in January, according to authorities.A jury on Monday found Ryan Phillip Schlesinger guilty of second-degree murder in the November 2018 death of Deputy U.S. Marshal Chase White.At the time of the fatal shooting, the 41-year-old White was just four days away from his deployment in the Air Force Reserve as a lieutenant colonel.Prosecutors said White, a married father of four, was part of a group of Marshals Service personnel who were trying to serve a felony arrest warrant at Schlesinger’s home.Schlesinger had been stalking a woman who was a Tucson police sergeant, according to a criminal complaint. He was 26 at the time of the shooting.After a standoff with law enforcement that lasted about an hour, authorities said Schlesinger emerged from his northern Tucson home wearing body armor and was taken into custody.Schlesinger pleaded not guilty to 13 cha...

Three arrested in a shooting at a Texas flea market that also killed a child and wounded 4 others

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:25:31 GMT

PEARLAND, Texas (AP) — Three individuals have been arrested in connection with a deadly shooting at a Texas flea market, including one of the suspected shooters, police said Tuesday. Three children and two adults were shot Sunday at Cole’s Flea Market in the Houston suburb of Pearland, with a 10-year-old boy later dying at a hospital. The others who were shot were also hospitalized with one of them later released. The shooting happened after an argument between two people who did not know each other, according to authorities. Pearland police said that 19-year-old David Negrete, who they had been looking for after charging him Monday with aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, turned himself in to authorities on Tuesday morning. On Monday night, Pearland police announced that two individuals — Cruz Meza and Julianna Espino, both 18 years old — were each charged with tampering with evidence and making a false statement to an officer.Meza was one of the five people shot Sunday, polic...