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Biden’s budget set to lay groundwork for high stakes battles ahead

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 11:17:48 GMT

(CNN) — The budget blueprint President Joe Biden is set to reveal on Thursday is designed lay out a clear, if aspirational, policy vision for the year ahead.The proposal also lays down a strategic marker that White House officials plan to put at the center of the high-stakes policy and political battles looming over Washington.“There’s a vision here and there’s a contrast,” Office of Management and Budget Director Shalanda Young said in an interview with CNN. “You can be fiscally responsible and invest in the American people, or you can pull the rug out from people by going after programs that people absolutely need.”Biden, over the course of the last several weeks, has repeatedly telegraphed how important he and his top advisers view his 2024 budget to be in creating a favorable environment for the fights ahead.Advisers stress that the budget, which significantly overlaps with past Biden policy proposals from his first two ye...

Toronto condo owners ‘outraged’ over new Airbnb partnership

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 11:17:48 GMT

Toronto is a top tourist destination for travellers making short-term rental spots in the city a lucrative business for homeowners. The ICE condominiums have become infamous for hosting short-term rentals but starting this week additional restrictions have been put in place including a booking fee surcharge as part of a new partnership between the condominium board and Airbnb. In a letter sent to condo owners dated March 6, the condominium says Airbnb will be the exclusive short-term rental platform permitted for use by owners in ICE Condominiums. A 15-percent fee on the total booking cost will now go towards the condominiums contingency fund to pay for capital repairs and improvements as well as additional security.Owners say while they wanted to see a more proactive approach to improve short-term rentals in the building, they weren’t fully consulted on the changes with some calling the new restrictions unfair.“We were appalled,” says Maria, a condo owner in the buildi...

Retired army general Petr Pavel inaugurated Czech president

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 11:17:48 GMT

Prague (AP) — A retired army general and former senior NATO official was sworn in Thursday as the Czech Republic’s new president, succeeding the controversy-courting Milos Zeman.Petr Pavel took the formal oath during a joint session of both houses of Parliament at Prague Castle, the seat of the presidency.He was elected to the largely ceremonial but prestigious post in a runoff vote on Jan 28, beating populist billionaire Andrej Babis.Pavel, 61, ran as an independent in the election and is a former chairman of NATO’s military committee, the alliance’s highest military body. His election is expected to cement the country’s Western orientation.His predecessor Zeman divided the nation with his pro-Russian stance and support for closer ties with China.Zeman, whose second and final five-year term in office expired on Wednesday, was the first president to have been directly elected by the people. Lawmakers elected the country’s previous two presidents, Vaclav Havel and Vaclav ...

Applications for US jobless aid rise by most in 5 months

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 11:17:48 GMT

The number of Americans applying for unemployment benefits last week jumped by the most in five months, but layoffs remain historically low as the labor market continues to be largely unaffected by the Federal Reserve’s interest rate hikes.Applications for jobless claims in the U.S. for the week ending March 4 rose by 21,000 to 211,000 from 190,000 the previous week, the Labor Department said Thursday. It’s the first time in eight weeks that claims came in above 200,000. The four-week moving average of claims, which flattens out some of the weekly ups and downs, rose by 4,000 to 197,000, remaining below the 200,000 threshold for the seventh straight week.Applications for unemployment benefits are considered a proxy for layoffs.About 1.72 million people were receiving jobless aid the week that ended Feb. 25, an increase of 69,000 from the week before.Matt Ott, The Associated Press

Transat AT reports Q1 $56.6M loss, revenue more than triples

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 11:17:48 GMT

MONTREAL — Transat AT Inc. reported a $56.6-million loss in its latest quarter compared with a loss of $114.3 million a year earlier as its revenue more than tripled.Transat chief executive Annick Guérard says the company is on an upswing and is headed for a return to profitability. The travel company says the loss amounted to $1.49 per diluted share for the quarter ended Jan. 31. compared with a loss of $3.03 per diluted share a year earlier.Revenue in what was the first-quarter of the company’s 2023 financial year totalled $667.5 million, up from $202.4 million a year earlier when the company had to scrub nearly 30 per cent of its scheduled flights as a result of booking cancellations following the emergence of the Omicron variant.On an adjusted basis, Transat says it lost $1.62 per share in the quarter compared with an adjusted loss of $2.53 per share in its first quarter last year.Analysts on average had expected a loss of $2.02 per share and $662.5 million in revenue, acc...

Rights group says Lebanon electricity crisis deepens poverty

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 11:17:48 GMT

BEIRUT (AP) — Since the collapse of Lebanon’s state power grid, many middle and working class families have been forced to spend most of their monthly income to pay shady neighborhood businessmen running private generators. Still, they go without electricity for nearly half the day, according to a report by Human Rights Watch released Thursday. The situation threatens to deepen the poverty of this tiny Mediterranean country embroiled in a devastating economic meltdown. In the report, the New York-based watchdog documented the struggles of over 1,200 lower-income households in LebanonPushed to the bring of bankruptcy, the state-run power company now provides the Lebanese with less than three hours of power a day. Most families told HRW they compromise on food, education, medications and other basic needs to pay for supplemental electricity. According to the report, generator bills take up about 44% of the average family’s monthly income, and twice that for the country’s poorer famili...

Before Morgentaler, part 2: Making it legal

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 11:17:48 GMT

In today’s Big Story podcast, on June 24, 2022, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, the case that legalized abortion in the country in 1973. The decision shocked many around the world, and has had folks wondering: could this happen here, at home, in Canada? And what led up to this historic moment in the U.S.? What are the real and current issues facing the state of abortion in Canada, and how can we make a difference?This two-part miniseries is hosted by Sarah Sahagian, a feminist podcaster, writer, and non-profit executive living in Toronto. Her byline has appeared in such outlets as The Washington Post, The National Post, The Toronto Star, Refinery29, Romper, and Scary Mommy. In her previous life, she was a gender studies academic who studied parenting and mother blame. Sarah is also the co-host of Frequency Podcast Network’s The Reheat.You can subscribe to The Big Story podcast on Apple Podcasts, Google and Spotify.You can also find it at thebigstorypodcast.ca.

Lineker’s attack on UK migrant policy puts BBC in a bind

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 11:17:48 GMT

LONDON (AP) — As a soccer player, Gary Lineker was one of England’s top scorers. The British government thinks his political opinions miss the mark.Conservative lawmakers in the U.K. are calling on the BBC to discipline Lineker, now a pundit and the network’s highest-paid star, for comparing the government’s language about migrants to that used in Nazi Germany. In a tweet on Tuesday, the former England team captain described the government’s plan to detain and deport migrants arriving by boat as “an immeasurably cruel policy directed at the most vulnerable people in language that is not dissimilar to that used by Germany in the 30s.”Home Secretary Suella Braverman, Britain’s immigration minister, has called people arriving in small boats an “invasion,” and said “the law-abiding patriotic majority have said: ‘Enough is enough.’”The Conservative government called Lineker’s Nazi comparison inappropriate and unacceptable, and some lawmakers said he should be fired.“As somebody whose gra...

Transnistria accuses Ukraine of trying to kill its president

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 11:17:48 GMT

MOSCOW (AP) — Moldova’s breakaway region of Transnistria, which has close ties to Moscow and hosts Russian troops, claimed Thursday it has thwarted an assassination attempt on its president allegedly organized by Ukraine’s national security service.Transnistria’s state security ministry said an unspecified number of people had been arrested in connection with an attempted attack on the region’s president, Vadim Krasnoselsky, and other officials.Prosecutor Anatoly Guretsky said the suspects planned to detonate an explosives-packed automobile near the presidential cortege as it traveled through the capital, Tiraspol.It said Ukraine’s SBU security service ordered the assassination attempt, but did not provide evidence. The SBU rejected the allegation, saying it “should be considered exclusively as a provocation orchestrated by the Kremlin.”A separatist war broke out in 1990 in Transnistria — a strip of land with about 470,000 residents that borders Ukraine...

Vinícius Júnior again target of racist insults in Spain

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 11:17:48 GMT

MADRID (AP) — The Spanish league filed another complaint to authorities on Thursday following racial insults aimed at Real Madrid forward Vinícius Júnior.It was the seventh official complaint made by the league for insults against the Brazilian player, who is Black. The latest complaint came after someone called him a monkey during Madrid’s 0-0 draw at Real Betis on Sunday.The complaint was made to a court in Seville to try to identify the person and take the appropriate legal measures against the individual. Betis is based in Seville.Vinícius has been subjected to racist insults since he came to play in Spain five years ago, though very little has been done to punish fans.Some of the league’s complaints have already been shelved by Spanish prosecutors.Last month, Spain’s anti-violence commission proposed a fine of 4,000 euros ($4,200) and a 12-month ban from stadiums for a fan who called Vinícius a monkey in a league match against Mallorca.Valladolid recently suspended 12 sea...