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Shuswap wildfire ruin is revealed as B.C. faces ‘sleeping giant’ of drought

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:00:10 GMT

SCOTCH CREEK, B.C. — All that stands of the Scotch Creek — Lee Creek firehall in the British Columbia Interior’s Shuswap region is a set of blackened stairs leading to a pile of rubble.The ruins are a stark indication of the indiscriminate power of the Bush Creek East blaze that tore through the region about three weeks ago, with speed and ferocity that officials likened to a tornado.It destroyed 176 properties and damaged 50 others. Some of that destruction was on display during separate tours on Wednesday for the media and residents who lost their homes in the region.Derek Sutherland, director of the Columbia-Shuswap emergency operations centre, said the purpose of the residents’ tours was to give them “closure” so they can hopefully begin rebuilding. “It was burning whatever was in its path, including our firehall. Some places fared better than others, of course,” he said.But while the Bush Creek East fire is among more than 400 wildfires still burni...

Man convicted of killing woman in Saskatchewan arrested in B.C., parole suspended

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:00:10 GMT

VICTORIA — A man who brutally murdered an Indigenous woman in Saskatoon is back in custody and his parole has been suspended.Victoria police say Kenneth MacKay, who is 49, was arrested Friday but did not provide further details.MacKay was found guilty of first-degree murder for the killing of 21-year-old Crystal Paskemin in 2000.He received an automatic life sentence with no chance of parole for 25 years.The Parole Board of Canada approved MacKay for day parole in January and it was extended in July by another six months.The board’s decision notes the parole was granted against the advice of the Correctional Service of Canada.It says MacKay’s case-management team considered him a high risk for violent reoffending and wanted a more gradual release. “There continue to be concerns regarding power and control issues and possible issues with women,” says the decision.MacKay’s release conditions included returning to a residential facility on Vancouver Island every night and r...

Japan launches rocket carrying X-ray telescope to explore origins of universe, lunar lander

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:00:10 GMT

TOKYO (AP) — Japan launched a rocket Thursday carrying an X-ray telescope that will explore the origins of the universe as well as a small lunar lander. The launch of the HII-A rocket from Tanegashima Space Center in southwestern Japan was shown on live video by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, known as JAXA.“We have a liftoff,” the narrator at JAXA said as the rocket flew up in a burst of smoke and flew over the Pacific. The rocket will put into orbit around Earth a satellite called the X-Ray Imaging and Spectroscopy Mission, or XRISM, which will measure the speed and makeup of what lies between galaxies.That information helps in studying how celestial objects were formed, and hopefully can lead to solving the mystery of how the universe was created, JAXA says.In cooperation with NASA, JAXA will look at the strength of light at different wavelengths, the temperature of things in space and their shapes and brightness.David Alexander, director of the Rice Space Institute at Ri...

Alexander Payne makes ’em like they used to: Fall Movie Preview

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:00:10 GMT

NEW YORK (AP) — The great films of the 1970s have long loomed in the imagination of filmmakers raised during one of the most fertile periods of American movies. But Alexander Payne wanted to take it a step further.Payne’s latest film, “The Holdovers,” isn’t just set in 1970, it seeks to imbibe the humanistic spirit of films like “The Last Detail,”“Harold and Maude,” “The Landlord” and “Paper Moon” — all movies he screened for his cast and crew. “We were very fully making a ’70s movie,” Payne says, recently speaking by phone from his desk in Omaha, Nebraska.Payne, 62, shot “The Holdovers,” set at a New England boarding school, largely with filmmaking equipment and camera lenses from that period. He mixed it in mono. “We were trying to play the exercise of: We are in 1970 making this movie,” he says.“The Holdovers,” which Focus Features will release Oct. 27 and expand on Nov. 10, is Payne’s first film in six years and it’s one of his best. Payne, the filmmaker of “Election...

Freddie Mercury’s prized piano, ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ draft are champions at auction

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:00:10 GMT

LONDON (AP) — Freddie Mercury ’s prized piano that he used to compose “Bohemian Rhapsody” and other hits by Queen sold for more than $2 million Wednesday as some of the late singer’s massive collection of flamboyant stage costumes, fine art and original lyrics were auctioned in a sale that broke records.Items connected to the operatic “Rhapsody,” the band’s most enduring hit, brought a premium with hand-written lyrics to the song selling for about 1.4 million pounds ($1.7 million) and a gold Cartier brooch saying “Queen number 1” given to each band member by their manager after the song topped the charts, selling for 165,000 pounds ($208,000).A Victorian-style silver snake bangle Mercury wore with an ivory satin catsuit in a video for the song — long before the days of MTV — set a record for the highest price ever paid at auction for a piece of jewelry owned by a rock star, Sotheby’s said.The bracelet went for 698,500 pounds ($881,000) — 100 times its estimated low price...

Grizzly bear blamed for fatal Montana mauling and Idaho attack is killed after breaking into a house

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:00:10 GMT

WEST YELLOWSTONE, Mont. (AP) — A grizzly bear that fatally mauled a woman on a forest trail west of Yellowstone National Park in July and also attacked a person in Idaho three years ago was killed after it broke into a house near West Yellowstone over the weekend, Montana wildlife officials said Wednesday. Early Saturday, a homeowner reported that a bear with a cub had broken through a kitchen window and taken a container of dog food, Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks said in a statement.Later that day agency workers captured the cub and shot the 10-year-old female grizzly with authorization from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, because grizzly bears are protected under the Endangered Species Act.Through genetic analysis and other identifying factors, the bear was confirmed to have been involved in the July 22 fatal attack on Amie Adamson, 48, a former teacher from Kansas, about 8 miles (13 kilometers) from West Yellowstone. Efforts to trap the bear at that time were unsuccessful....

Health agency probing Air Canada vomit incident

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:00:10 GMT

The outrage sparked by a passenger incident involving a vomit-smeared airplane seat reflects a broader frustration with flight operations in Canada, travel specialists say.Meanwhile, the country’s public health agency says it’s investigating the recent episode.On Tuesday, Air Canada said it apologized to two passengers who were escorted off the plane by security after protesting that their seats were soiled — and still damp — ahead of an Aug. 26 flight from Las Vegas to Montreal.“They clearly did not receive the standard of care to which they were entitled,” the airline said in a statement emailed to The Canadian Press. “Our operating procedures were not followed correctly in this instance.”The Public Health Agency of Canada said it is in contact with Air Canada. It cited its mandate to ensure that anything brought into the country on conveyances ranging from planes to trains does not risk transmission of illnesses that can be spread via contact w...

A Trump backer’s lead in Utah’s congressional primary is widening with strong rural support

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:00:10 GMT

With strong backing from Utah’s rural voters, Donald Trump supporter Celeste Maloy’s lead grew Wednesday in a Republican special congressional primary, but the race was still too early to call.Whoever triumphs in the GOP primary will be heavily favored to win November’s general election, and the race has thrown a spotlight on the rural-urban divide among Republicans in the sprawling district, which encompasses large swaths of southern and western Utah as well as northern Salt Lake City. Many votes had yet to be counted, with thousands of mail-in ballots expected to come in over the next two weeks.Becky Edwards, a former state lawmaker who’s been critical of Trump, was leading in two urban counties. But Maloy, who was chief legal counsel to U.S. Rep. Chris Stewart, had the overall edge with support from rural areas. Stewart is stepping down next week because his wife is ill.Maloy, who has a bachelor’s degree in agriculture from Southern Utah University and onc...

Hamilton declares ‘high’ level of West Nile Virus risk, communities seeing disease uptick

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:00:10 GMT

As summer winds down, Ontario municipalities are starting to see the first positive human West Nile Virus (WNV) cases of the year as traps appear to be showing an increase in the disease seen annually.Hamilton Public Health Services staff sent out a statement on Tuesday to say the first local positive case was confirmed by a laboratory, which prompted the City’s medical officer of health to “move the WNV risk from moderate to high.”Jane Murrell, the city’s supervisor of health hazards and vector-borne disease program, told CityNews on Wednesday that 19 mosquito pool traps have positively detected WNV. She noted multiple traps saw repeated positive results.“It is a little high this year. I think last year we had nine, the year before it was seven, but then 11 prior to that,” she said.“It’s part of the mosquito population. It’s never going to go away. We obviously do things to try to mitigate and reduce the levels.”Officials ...

Hillary Clinton returning to the White House for an arts event next week

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:00:10 GMT

WASHINGTON (AP) — Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is set to make a rare public appearance at the White House since losing her 2016 bid for the presidency, attending an arts event next week with first lady Jill Biden.The White House announced that Clinton is scheduled to appear Tuesday to help honor the 2023 winners of the Praemium Imperiale, a global prize awarded annually by the Japan Art Association for lifetime achievement in the arts. Praemium Imperiale laureates were first celebrated at the White House by President Bill Clinton and the then-first lady in 1994.Bill Clinton had lunch with Biden at the White House in May 2022, a month after former President Barack Obama returned to the White House for the first time since the end of his administration for an event celebrating his signature health care law. Hillary Clinton, a former New York senator who served as Obama’s secretary of state from 2009 to 2013, has kept a relatively low public profile since losing the ...