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Lawsuit dropped after school board changes course, adopts Youngkin’s transgender student policy

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 09:12:47 GMT

RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — A Washington-based attorney confirmed Wednesday his firm was dropping litigation it filed last month regarding Republican Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s new policies on transgender students because the school board his firm sued has since adopted guidelines consistent with the governor’s. But the firm could potentially still bring other litigation in districts that are bucking the administration’s guidance, said Charles Cooper of Cooper & Kirk, which is widely known for its work on conservative legal causes.Attorneys from the firm represented two parents who sued the Virginia Beach School Board seeking the enforcement of Youngkin’s policies, which roll back many accommodations for transgender students urged by the previous Democratic administration.The policies have prompted an outcry from LGBTQ advocates and Democratic lawmakers, who say they codify discrimination and could harm an already vulnerable population. Republicans, religious groups and other...

New Speaker puts MPs on notice over unruly, toxic behaviour in House of Commons

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 09:12:47 GMT

OTTAWA, Ill. — Speaker Greg Fergus is warning MPs that he will use all powers available to him to maintain order and decorum in the House of Commons if they can’t do it themselves. Fergus rose before question period today to declare his intention to bring down the temperature during parliamentary proceedings.He says behaviour in the House has deteriorated over the years, and heckling from MPs intended to intimidate and drown out others has become boorish, rude and insulting. Fergus, who was elected Speaker at the beginning of October, says he’s committed to protecting MPs’ freedom of speech, but questionable language and provocative statements will not be tolerated.He says there’s a growing tendency for MPs to make pointed criticisms as a way to bully or attack each other’s integrity, and that’s introducing toxicity to question period and other proceedings. The official Opposition tried to prevent Fergus from delivering his speech, with Conservati...

As Canada evacuates citizens in Israel, some Israeli-Canadians want to stay

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 09:12:47 GMT

As Shawna Goodman-Sone spoke to a reporter from a suburb of Tel Aviv Wednesday, she had to end the call abruptly and seek refuge in her home’s safe room as an air raid warning went off.Before fleeing into the reinforced room, she spoke about moving to Israel from Montreal nine years ago — and why she has decided to stay in the country despite the war with Hamas.“We’re taking a leap of faith that this is where we belong,” Goodman-Sone said. “This is where we chose to live, this is where our home is, our community, our friends, and all of our friends’ kids are serving in the army. I’m so grateful we made this decision.”Global Affairs Canada estimates that roughly 35,000 Canadian citizens live in Israel, which allows people with at least one Jewish grandparent, and their spouses, to quickly obtain citizenship. Since Israel declared war on Hamas on Sunday, more than 1,300 Canadians have left the country on military flights organized ...

Movie Review: Cornwell/le Carré, through Errol Morris’ lens, in riveting ‘The Pigeon Tunnel’

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 09:12:47 GMT

Errol Morris’s conversation with the late David Cornwell in “ The Pigeon Tunnel ” is fascinating even without the filmmaking flourishes.Cornwell, better known by his pen name John le Carré, was the spy-turned-novelist whose tales of espionage and betrayal defined an era, gave literary heft to a genre and inspired numerous adaptations. And here, Morris challenges him to reflect on his unconventional childhood — his con-man father, his mother who left him at 5 never to return — on through his time in the secret services and beyond. You hear how he quite literally began life on the run, how he learned to be a “little spy” from quite a young age, how his father loomed so large in his imagination and how untrustworthy his own memory even turned out to be.It could have been just a transcript; It would have been a must-read.Cornwell died in 2020 at 89, and this film which will be streaming on Apple TV+ Friday, is said to be his final and “most candid” interview. That might simply be market...

Financial pressures could impact Canadians’ holiday spending: survey

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 09:12:47 GMT

New survey data suggests that Canadians are planning on reining in their holiday spending this year.Deloitte’s fifth annual holiday retail outlook survey has found that Canadians are expected to spend 11 per cent less for the holiday season than compared to last year, for an average of $1,347 per person.The findings show that growing financial pressures may be the cause for this drop. Two-thirds of respondents said they’re concerned about a recession, while 55 per cent are worried about rent and mortgage increases.“You add all those things together which are obviously grounded in inflation, economic risk, and whatnot, they’re feeling extreme pressure,” said Marty Weintraub, National Retail Leader with Deloitte.It’s not just the holiday season that may suffer from these fears, as Weintraub says Halloween also falls under the umbrella of the holiday spending season.“Halloween, I would say, is sort of encompassed in the holiday shopping season ...

Musician Mike Skinner turns actor and director with ‘The Darker the Shadow, the Brighter the Light’

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 09:12:47 GMT

LONDON (AP) — Mike Skinner is doing it all himself — even if it takes years.He wrote, directed, edited and starred in a feature-length movie, “The Darker the Shadow, the Brighter the Light.” It is accompanied by an album of the same name released last Friday — the first album from The Streets in 12 years. Formed in London in the early 1990s, The Streets’ debut record “Original Pirate Material” was released in 2002 and became an instant classic. Their lyrics reference club culture, hangovers in cafes and dating celebrities, but also topics like male fragility in “Dry Your Eyes” and battles with grief in “Never Went to Church.”Skinner’s movie “The Darker the Shadow, the Brighter the Light” is described as a “neo-noir detective film” but instead of a private eye solving the case, it’s a DJ. Though obviously nonfiction, it references Skinner’s life as a DJ in his mid-40s — taking place in backstage rooms, on dance floors and behind decks and in the backseats of c...

Environmental group challenges federal action on protecting endangered spotted owl

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 09:12:47 GMT

VANCOUVER — An environmental group is in Federal Court in Vancouver challenging what it describes as Ottawa’s failure to protect the endangered northern spotted owl despite an “imminent threat” to its recovery.The Wilderness Committee, represented by environmental law charity Ecojustice, says federal Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault delayed by eight months recommending an emergency order to cabinet that would have protected the owl in B.C.’s Fraser Canyon. Ecojustice lawyer Kegan Pepper-Smith told the court that the Wilderness Committee initially petitioned the federal government last October to raise the issue well ahead of the 2023 logging season, where the old growth forest that spotted owls rely on could be threatened. Pepper-Smith said Guilbeault had the responsibility under Canada’s Species at Risk Act to respond to the imminent threat to the recovery of the spotted owl population, given the animal’s endangered status.The federal gover...

Far-right influencer sentenced to 7 months in 2016 voter suppression scheme

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 09:12:47 GMT

NEW YORK (AP) — A right-wing social media influencer was sentenced to seven months in federal prison on Wednesday for spreading falsehoods via Twitter, now known as X, in an effort to suppress Democratic turnout in the 2016 presidential election.Douglass Mackey, who posted under the alias Ricky Vaughn, was convicted in March of the charge of conspiracy against rights after a trial in federal court in Brooklyn.Prosecutors said Mackey, who had 58,000 Twitter followers, conspired with others between September and November of 2016 to post falsely that supporters of Democrat Hillary Clinton could vote for her by text message or social media post.For example, they said, Mackey tweeted a photo of a woman standing in front of an “African Americans for Hillary” sign. “Avoid the Line. Vote from Home,” the tweet said. “Text ‘Hillary’ to 59925.”U.S. Attorney Breon Peace said in a statement that Mackey “weaponized disinformation in a dangerous scheme to stop targeted groups, including blac...

Search continues for inmate who escaped from Houston courthouse amid brawl in courtroom

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 09:12:47 GMT

HOUSTON (AP) — The search continued Wednesday for an inmate who managed to walk out of a Houston courthouse after being left unattended by deputies who were responding to a brawl in a nearby courtroom.At around 10 a.m. Tuesday, Michael Devon Combs was being detained in what is normally a secured holding area for individuals in custody. The holding area was located in the back of a courtroom on the 19th floor of Houston’s criminal courthouse, said Mark Lipkin, Combs’ attorney. Lipkin was in the holding area with Combs and had spoken with him just before his escape.“I had my back to him when everything happened. I mean, if I were just able to give him some advice, I would have told him it’s not smart to do that. Don’t do it,” Lipkin said.In the holding area, which cannot be seen by the public, Combs sat on a metal bench and had a shackle, like “handcuffs for the feet,” around his ankle, Lipkin said. The shackle was attached to a metal pole on the bench.Combs, 32, was waiting for a cou...

Fugees rapper says lawyer’s use of AI helped tank his case, pushes for new trial

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 09:12:47 GMT

WASHINGTON (AP) — The trial of a Fugees rapper, who was convicted this year in multimillion-dollar political conspiracies, stretched across the worlds of politics and entertainment — and now the case is touching on the tech world with arguments that his defense attorney bungled the case, in part, by using an artificial intelligence program to write his closing arguments.Prakazrel “Pras” Michel argued that use of the “experimental” generative AI program was one of a number of errors his previous attorney made a trial for which he was “unqualified, unprepared and ineffectual,” according to a motion for new trial his new lawyers filed this week. The company behind the program, on the other hand, said it was a tool used to help write closing statements, and a harbinger of major changes in the field. Generative AI programs are capable of creating realistic text, images and video. They’re raising tough questions about misinformation and copyright protections as well as industr...