The US president arrived in Jeddah on the third day of a four-day visit to the Middle East. The Saudi leg is one of the most delicate trips he has faced on the world stage.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Federal Reserve officials saw signs that the U.S. economy was weakening at their last meeting but still called inflation “unacceptably high’’ before raising their benchmark interest rate by a sizable three-quarters of a point in their drive to slow spiking prices. In minutes from their July 26-27 meeting released Wednesday, the policymakers said they expected the U.S. economy to expand in the second half of 2022. But many of them suggested that growth would weaken as higher rat
Former Ontario Liberal leader Steven Del Duca said Tuesday he has entered the race for Vaughan mayor in the October municipal election. In a news release, he said his campaign will focus on stemming traffic gridlock in the city that he has called home for 35 years. “Vaughan has experienced explosive population growth over the years and it’s been hard for our transportation network to keep up,” he said. “The result is obvious and brutal – more of our residents are stuck in traffic every single da
The World Health Organization's director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has suggested that racism is behind a lack of international attention being paid to the plight of civilians in Ethiopia's war-shattered Tigray region. Calling it the "worst humanitarian crisis in the world", with 6 million people unable to access basic services, Tedros questioned in an emotional appeal why the situation is not getting the same attention as the Ukraine conflict. "Maybe the reason is the colour of the skin of the people," Tedros, who is from Tigray, told a virtual media briefing on Wednesday.
PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — The day after Oregon Supreme Court Chief Justice Martha Walters fired all nine members of the state commission that oversees public defense, she said Tuesday that she was appointing four new commissioners and reappointing five commissioners from the previous group. Walters had fired the commission members out of frustration that hundreds of defendants charged with crimes and who cannot afford an attorney have been unable to obtain public defenders to represent them. “This c
A new made-in-P.E.I. technology is helping detect and prevent foot problems in patients with diabetes. It's called Stepscan and looks like a long floor mat with sensors hidden underneath. As a patient walks along the top, the sensors analyze and reflect their steps on a computer nearby. "So we have some higher pressure areas in the red here, underneath the balls of your feet," said Hayden Atkinson, a physiotherapist who runs the tests. "This would be where more of the pressure is being distribut
The 70-year-old man who police shot in downtown Windsor Monday bought a machete from a pawn shop not far from the incident. That's according to Valentin Petre, who owns the Rabbit Hole pawn shop near the corner of Wyandotte Street and Ouellette Avenue. Petre says he gave investigators video of a man who appears to be Allan Andkilde, the victim in the shooting, buying the item from his store. "He's been here a few times," Petre said. "We talk once in a while, not to the point where we're buddy-bu
WASHINGTON (AP) — Planned Parenthood, the nation's leading reproductive health care provider and abortion rights advocacy organization, plans to spend a record $50 million ahead of November's midterm elections, pouring money into contests where access to abortion will be on the ballot. The effort, which breaks the group's previous $45 million spending record set in 2020, comes months after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, the landmark 1973 case that created a constitutional right to hav
A plan to spray a fish-killing chemical in New Brunswick's Miramichi Lake can go ahead, in theory. Last week, Court of Queen's Bench Judge Terrence Morrison issued an emergency injunction temporarily barring a group from spraying rotenone, a pesticide and piscicide, on the lake with the intent of killing off invasive smallmouth bass. That injunction expired at 1:30 p.m. Wednesday, and a hearing in Woodstock Court of Queen's Bench that was supposed to include arguments for and against the project
The drum corps of Simon Fraser University's (SFU) Grade 1 pipe band has been named the best in the world, and the band ranked sixth overall after a remarkable showing at the World Pipe Band Championships in Glasgow, Scotland, last week. "Winning the best drum corps prize is no small feat," drummer Reid Maxwell told On the Coast guest Host Belle Puri on Tuesday. "It was a really humbling, tremendously humbling experience for me." Field Marshal Montgomery Pipe Band of Northern Ireland took home th
BUCHA, Ukraine (AP) — Former U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called on the world Tuesday to honor civilians who were killed when Russian ground forces tried to invade Ukraine's capital and eventually retreated from the area surrounding Kyiv. Ban, a former South Korean diplomat who served as secretary-general between 2007 and 2016, visited Bucha, a city northwest of the Ukrainian capital where hundreds of civilians were found dead after the Russian withdrawal in late March. “It’s hard to expre
Ontario is seeing far fewer forest fires this year than the 10-year average, and only a fraction of what it experienced last summer, when fires tore through a record amount of land in the province, according to the provincial government. There have been 179 fires so far this year, with 2,416 hectares of land burned, Evan Lizotte, a fire information officer with the Ministry of Natural Resources, said in a recent interview. That's compared with the 10-year average of 669 fires and 174,196 hectare
Quebec's workplace health and safety board has ordered a food-processing company north of Montreal to reimburse two temporary foreign workers for charging them excess rent. The board told the company in July it had to pay the workers $3,800 each in housing costs it had deducted from their paycheques since May 2021. The workers say that last spring, the company asked them to sign a contract raising their rent from $225 to $300 per pay period. A number of the 48 temporary foreign workers from Mada
SANTA FE, N.M. (AP) — Cowboys for Trump founder Couy Griffin is fighting to keep his seat as a New Mexico county commissioner as he faces possible removal and disqualification from public office for his participation in last year’s insurrection at the U.S. Capitol. Griffin was previously convicted of a misdemeanor for entering Capitol grounds on Jan. 6, 2021. He was sentenced to 14 days and given credit for time served. Three residents of Santa Fe and Los Alamos counties filed a lawsuit seeking
Musk has a history of being unconventional, posting irreverent tweets. Below are some other tweets by Musk - who has more than 103 million followers - which have taken investors, Twitter users, Twitter's board and the rest of his audience by surprise. May 13, 2022: "Twitter deal temporarily on hold pending details supporting calculation that spam/fake accounts do indeed represent less than 5% of users."
The Ambassador Bridge's permit to build a second span expires at the end of the month. Windsor West MP Brian Masse does not want the federal government to renew it. Instead, he wants residents and business owners to receive financial assistance from Ottawa to revitalize the community. "The federal government recognized their order-in-council froze the area for five years and caused problems here, including the boarded up homes and the extension of this issue to the community," said Masse. "There
Environment Canada is continuing to issue heat warnings for Calgary and much of southern Alberta with daily high temperatures expected to reach 30 C for the rest of the week. Daytime temperatures in some parts of the province are forecast to range from 29 to 34 C. The heat should taper off Monday night and Tuesday before rising again on Wednesday, the agency said on its alerts page. As of 10:20 a.m. Wednesday, the heat warnings covered these areas: Calgary. Okotoks, High River, Claresholm. Drumh
This fall, there will be vegetables to harvest from a community garden in downtown Prince George that is being cared for by avid gardeners who live in a homeless encampment there. The Moccasin Flats garden was started by local advocate April Ottesen, who is helping homeless people in the community grow their own food. "I used to run a restaurant for a long time, and I got more and more interested in horticulture and working in community gardens," she said. "I also spent a good deal of my life co
This bison youngster thinks he's a dog! Look at how much fun he's having!
Prices of homes in New Brunswick are rising at a steady pace while large declines are reported in Canadian cities to the west, according to newly released statistics. In a report Monday, the Canadian Real Estate Association said the average home price was $629,971 in July, compared with June's average price of $665,850. The drop is steeper when the Greater Toronto and Vancouver areas are removed from the figures. However, in the Atlantic region, prices are mostly continuing to rise but at a slow
One-quarter of front-line employees surveyed at Canada's border agency in March 2020 said they had directly witnessed a colleague discriminate against a traveller in the previous two years. Of these respondents, 71 per cent suggested the discrimination was based, in full or in part, on the traveller's race, and just over three-quarters of respondents cited the traveller's national or ethnic origin. The figures are drawn from a survey that was conducted as part of an internal Canada Border Servic
