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Republican-led Wisconsin Senate votes to fire state’s nonpartisan top elections official

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 14:39:54 GMT

MADISON, Wis. (AP) — The Republican-controlled Wisconsin Senate voted Thursday to fire the battleground state’s nonpartisan top elections official ahead of the 2024 presidential election.Democrats say the vote was held improperly and that lawmakers don’t have the authority to oust Wisconsin Elections Commission Administrator Meagan Wolfe. The issue is expected to end in a legal battle.The fight over who will lead the elections agency stems from persisting lies about the 2020 election and creates instability ahead of the 2024 presidential race for the state’s more than 1,800 local clerks who actually run elections.Wolfe has been the subject of conspiracy theories and threats from election skeptics who falsely claim she was part of a plan to rig the 2020 vote in Wisconsin, and GOP leaders cited concerns from those skeptics in justifying Thursday’s 22-11 vote along party lines.“Wisconsinites have expressed concerns with the administration of elections both here in Wisconsin and n...

Botulism outbreak tied to sardines served in Bordeaux leaves 1 person dead and several hospitalized

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 14:39:54 GMT

PARIS (AP) — Matt Jackson was riding an electric bike through Bordeaux wine country when he started feeling strange. Nine days later, he’s on a breathing machine in a French intensive care unit, unable to open his eyes, communicating only via notes on a whiteboard —- and infected with botulism.Jackson was among the first of a dozen people who ate preserved sardines in a Bordeaux wine bar last week to be hospitalized with what French authorities believe is the rare and potentially fatal illness.One, a 32-year-old woman from the Paris region, has died.Officials issued an appeal around France and beyond to find others who might have eaten the suspicious sardines and might be at risk. Among those sickened have been visitors from the U.S., Ireland, Canada, Germany and Spain, according to the regional health authority ARS.Jackson and his partner Kristy Benner, on vacation from Hermosa Beach, California, stopped by the Tchin Tchin Wine Bar on Sept. 4, and sampled wine with small plat...

Peel school board faces calls for transparency on library ‘weeding’ process

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 14:39:54 GMT

Students and a national library association say a school board west of Toronto needs to be more transparent about the so-called “weeding” of its libraries amid concerns some books are being removed from collections solely because they were published before 2008.Ontario’s education minister has asked the Peel District School Board to put an immediate stop to its weeding process – which assesses and removes older books – saying it was “illogical” to remove books from years past that educate students on history, antisemitism or are celebrated classics.The board has said that older books, regardless of publication date, are allowed in schools if they are “accurate, relevant to the student population, inclusive, not harmful, and support the current curriculum.”But students and an advocacy group made up of members of the school community say some texts are being removed just for being more than 15 years old and are calling on the board to provide ...

Police: Suburban Chicago tent collapse injures at least 26, including 5 seriously

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 14:39:54 GMT

BEDFORD PARK, Ill. (AP) — A tent collapse in suburban Chicago injured at least 26 people, police said.Five of those hurt had serious injuries, Bedford Park Police Chief Tom Hansen said.The tent collapsed around 10:45 a.m. in the parking lot of a business, Hansen told local news outlets.The tent was being used for an event being hosted in the parking lot, he said.The Associated Press

All former youth in care in B.C. now eligible for education tuition waivers: minister

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 14:39:54 GMT

VICTORIA — British Columbia has expanded its tuition waiver program to include all former youth in government care enrolling in post-secondary education.Selina Robinson, post-secondary education and future skills minister, says the program is no longer capped at the student’s 27th birthday.She says the budget for the Provincial Tuition Waiver Program is $19.2 million over the next three years, providing former youth in care with free tuition at all 25 public post-secondary institutions, the Native Education College and approved union-based trades training providers.B.C.’s Ombudsperson Jay Chalke released a report last week that called on the government to compensate a woman who left government care at 17 years old to live with her aunt, but was denied post-secondary funding and ended up enrolling in a program at her own cost.Children’s Minister Mitzi Dean said in a statement her ministry would review the report, but did not offer to compensate the woman.The post-se...

Analysis shows Ohio’s new universal voucher program already exceeds cost estimates

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 14:39:54 GMT

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — The cost of Ohio’s new universal school voucher program already appears to be more expensive than initially estimated, according to a published report, and that cost will continue to grow as the application deadline is still more than a month away.An analysis by The Columbus Dispatch found the state has received applications totaling approximately $432 million for the 2023-24 school year, which is $34 million more than forecasted by the Legislative Service Commission. Meanwhile, the state education department says its receiving between 900 and 1,000 applications daily.When Ohio’s two-year budget was drafted, the commission estimated income-based vouchers would cost $397.8 million for fiscal year 2024 and $439.1 million for fiscal year 2025. However, voucher interest has skyrocketed since lawmakers expanded eligibility to all Ohioans in the state budget approved in July. The state awarded 24,320 vouchers for the 2022-23 school year and has received 70,487 ...

On movie screens in Toronto, home is a battleground

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 14:39:54 GMT

TORONTO (AP) — Three generations of a Ukrainian family sit in a van in the documentary “In the Rearview.” They stare straightforward, staggered by all they’ve left behind. Their home. The dogs they set loose. Their cow, Beauty.“She cried as we left,” a child says.“In the Rearview,” which documents several hundred who took filmmaker Maciek Hamela’s van out of eastern Ukraine in the first month of Russia’s attacks, movingly condenses a mass migration into a four-door flight.“I come from an aristocratic family,” one woman says in the film. “Now I am just a traveling frog.”As the Toronto International Film Festival winds down after a week of wall-to-wall premieres, on screen there has been no more fraught turf than the land that families try to eke out a life on, amid geopolitical storms knocking on the front door. The biggest battleground isn’t just a war zone but the home.In the dystopian Korean thriller “Concrete Utopia,” directed by Um Tae-hwa, an earthquake destroys everything in S...

Brazil’s top court imposes 17-year sentence, in first case against rioters who stormed the capital

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 14:39:54 GMT

SAO PAULO (AP) — Brazil’s Supreme Court on Thursday handed a 17-year prison sentence to a supporter of former President Jair Bolsonaro who stormed top government offices on Jan. 8 in an alleged bid to forcefully restore the right-wing leader to office.Aécio Lúcio Costa Pereira, 51, is the first of several participants in the uprising to be prosecuted. Police arrested him on the day of the riot.In January, cameras at the Senate filmed him wearing a shirt calling for a military coup and recording a video of himself praising others who had also broken into the building. Almost 1,500 people were detained on the day of the riots, though most have been released.The majority of the 11 justices of the court ruled that Pereira committed five crimes: criminal association; staging a coup; violent attack on the rule of law; qualified damage; and destruction of public assets. They sentenced him to 17 years in prison. Pereira denied any wrongdoing and claimed he took part in a peaceful demonstrat...

‘Hold the line,’ means different things to different people: ‘Freedom Convoy’ defence

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 14:39:54 GMT

OTTAWA — The lawyer for one of the most prominent organizers of the “Freedom Convoy” disputed the meaning of a key phrase used by demonstrators in the final days of the protest.The words “Hold the line” were frequently heard on the streets in Ottawa in February 2022, and were played in court over and over as the Crown took showed social media videos from the protest this week.Many of those videos featured Chris Barber and his co-accused, Tamara Lich, who are both facing criminal charges for their role in the protest. In the Crown’s opening statement, Tim Radcliffe said the two organizers didn’t just “hold the line,” they “crossed the line” into criminal activity by encouraging people to stay in Ottawa as police ordered protesters to leave. “There’s different interpretations for the words ‘Hold the line,'” said Barber’s defence lawyer, Diane Magas, outside the courthouse Thursday. She has not ye...

26 injured, 5 seriously after tent collapse in Bedford Park

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 14:39:54 GMT

BEDFORD PARK, Ill. — A tent collapsed in Bedford Park Thursday morning and 26 people were sent to the hospital.Bedford Park police said the tent collapsed near the Cintas Bedford Park location, which is in the 5600 block of West 73rd Street, at around 10:45 a.m.Authorities transferred 26 people suffering from various injuries. Five of the patients were transported in serious condition.Police said the cause of the collapse is currently being investigated.WGN News will update this story once more information becomes available.