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Site of Oakland warehouse fire that killed 36 sold to community group

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:25:18 GMT

OAKLAND, Calif. (AP) — A converted artists’ warehouse in Oakland that burned down in 2016, killing 36 people, was quietly razed this month in preparation for possible development into badly needed low-income housing. The property that housed the Ghost Ship warehouse was acquired by The Unity Council, a nonprofit community development organization based in Oakland. The council’s CEO Chris Iglesias told the Bay Area News Group last week that they plan to move forward with care, knowing how sensitive the issue is for the families of those who died when a fire broke out in the warehouse during a Dec. 2, 2016, electronic music party. “We just want to be really, really thoughtful in this process and just understand what a tragic event this was to them,” he said. No cause was determined in the fire, but a likely electrical overload filled the warehouse with smoke and flames that quickly trapped partygoers inside. The building had been illegally converted into a live-work space ...

New Democrat MP says she is target of foreign interference by China

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:25:18 GMT

OTTAWA — New Democrat MP Jenny Kwan says Canada’s spy agency has told her she is an ongoing target of the Chinese government.The Vancouver member of Parliament says she was briefed Friday by the Canadian Security Intelligence ServiceShe says CSIS informed her she was singled out by China in the 2019 federal election and that she remains a target because of her criticism of the Chinese government.Kwan says she cannot reveal specifics of Beijing’s alleged actions without breaking security laws.She says she will continue to speak out on behalf of immigrants, the diaspora community and human rights.Kwan is the latest MP to say she has received a CSIS briefing about being singled out by the Chinese government.This report by The Canadian Press was first published May 29, 2023. The Canadian Press

Man pleads guilty to murder, assault in B.C. library stabbing spree

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:25:18 GMT

NEW WESTMINSTER, B.C. — A man who stabbed numerous people in and around the Lynn Valley Library in North Vancouver two years ago has pleaded guilty to murder and other charges.Yannick Bandaogo pleaded guilty in a New Westminster, B.C., court to second-degree murder, several charges of attempted murder and one count of aggravated assault. Bandaogo was arrested shortly after the attack in March 2021 near the library where a woman was killed and six other people were hurt. The victims ranged in age from 22 to 78. Bandaogo, who was originally from Quebec, made his plea in French.He didn’t speak to the court on Monday, other than to answer the judge that he understood the consequences of pleading guilty and giving up his right to a trial. The court was given an agreed statement of facts describing the man’s rampage that day. Police said at the time that Bandaogo didn’t know any of his victims. He was treated in hospital after the attack for what police said were self-inflicte...

25 NAT0-led peacekeepers injured in Kosovo in clashes with Serbs outside municipal building

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:25:18 GMT

ZVECAN, Kosovo (AP) — The NATO-led KFOR peacekeeping force on Monday said that 25 of its troops were injured in the clashes with ethnic Serbs in northern Kosovo who were trying to take over the offices of one of the municipalities where ethnic Albanian mayors took up their posts last week.The Serbs started clashing with the police in the morning in the municipality of Zvecan, 45 kilometers (28 miles) north of the capital, Pristina. In the afternoon, KFOR soldiers called on Serbs to clear the way for two vehicles from the Kosovar special police forces. The soldiers then used tear gas and stun grenades to protect the Kosovar officers in the vehicles and disperse protesters, according to witnesses and local media. The assembled Serbs responded by throwing rocks and other hard objects. “Several soldiers of the Italian and Hungarian KFOR contingent were the subject of unprovoked attacks and sustained trauma wounds with fractures and burns due to the explosion of incendiary devices,” said...

Pregnancy and sports a challenging combination for female professional athletes

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:25:18 GMT

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Pro soccer player Jess McDonald was traded across six teams in her first five years as a single parent, making it difficult to find, let alone afford, child care in new cities. She and her then-8-month-old son were often forced to share a hotel room with a teammate — and sometimes she had no choice but to bring him with her to practice.“If I’d have a bad game, you know, my kid would be blamed for it at times, and it was just like, ‘Oh, was your kid up late at night?’” the U.S. Women’s National Team player said in a recent interview. Arizona State basketball coach Charli Turner Thorne had three children without taking maternity leave. And New York Liberty head coach and former WNBA player Sandy Brondello — acknowledging the difficulties that she would face if she got pregnant — waited to have kids until she retired as a player at age 38. Juggling the demands of parenthood with those of a professional sports career is just one of myriad challenges female athle...

Advisers on unmarked graves won’t work with Hague-based organization Ottawa hired

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:25:18 GMT

OTTAWA — A panel of Indigenous experts says it will not participate in engagement sessions hosted by an international organization Ottawa hired to provide advice on identifying possible human remains in unmarked graves.The National Advisory Committee on Residential Schools Missing Children and Unmarked Burials says today that after giving the matter careful thought, it has decided against involvement in the process. The federal government and the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation announced the committee last July.Months earlier, the Tk’emlups te Secwepemc Nation in British Columbia released ground-penetrating radar findings of what are believed to be more than 200 unmarked graves at the site of a former residential school. Other First Nations across Western Canada have since announced similar discoveries, and last fall the federal government signed a contract with the Netherlands-based International Commission on Missing Persons to engage with communities on identifying p...

UAE announces groundbreaking mission to asteroid belt, seeking clues to life’s origins

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:25:18 GMT

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — The United Arab Emirates unveiled plans Monday to send a spaceship to explore the solar system’s main asteroid belt, the latest space project by the oil-rich nation after it launched the successful Hope spacecraft to Mars in 2020.Dubbed the Emirates Mission to the Asteroid Belt, the project aims to develop a spacecraft in the coming years and then launch it in 2028 to study various asteroids.“This mission is a follow up and a follow on the Mars mission, where it was the first mission to Mars from the region,” said Mohsen Al Awadhi, program director of the Emirates Mission to the Asteroid Belt. “We’re creating the same thing with this mission. That is, the first mission ever to explore these seven asteroids in specific and the first of its kind when it’s looked at from the grand tour aspect.” The UAE became the first Arab country and the second country ever to successfully enter Mars’ orbit on its first try when its Hope probe reac...

Belarus has no immediate plans to adopt Russian currency, its strongman leader Lukashenko says

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:25:18 GMT

TALLINN, Estonia (AP) — Belarus and Russia have no plans to adopt a joint currency in the near future, Belarus’ strongman leader announced on Monday.Speaking at a meeting with the head of Russia’s central bank, Alexander Lukashenko said that introducing the Russian ruble in Belarus would not be “an easy process,” and that the authorities in Minsk had no intentions so far of doing so. “When it comes to creating a single currency and so on, this is not an easy process and, probably, not (one) for today,” Lukashenko said on Monday during talks with bank governor Elvira Nabiullina.Lukashenko has for decades relied on subsidies from Moscow to keep Belarus’ Soviet-style economy afloat. The two countries signed agreements on the creation of a defense, monetary and customs union as early as in the mid-1990s, though differences have persisted between Moscow and Minsk regarding their implementation.Russian support also helped the autocratic leader survive months of mass protests following the...

Lebanese officials say Saudi Arabian citizen kidnapped in Beirut, motive unclear

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:25:18 GMT

BEIRUT (AP) — Assailants kidnapped a Saudi Arabian citizen in Beirut but the motive behind the abduction was not immediately clear, Lebanon’s interior minister and security officials said Monday.State-run Saudi TV station Al-Ekhbariya reported that the kidnapped man works for Saudi national airlines Saudia and that the kidnappers demanded a $400,000 ransom. The officials in Beirut said the man was kidnapped around midnight Saturday on the road leading to Beirut’s Rafik Hariri International Airport and search operations were underway to find him.The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity in line with regulations, gave no further details.Lebanon’s caretaker Interior Minister Bassam Mawlawi tweeted that members of the intelligence department of Lebanon’s police have been searching for the Saudi citizen since Sunday. Mawlawi did not release the name of the Saudi citizen adding that authorities are following the case with the Saudi ambassador to Beirut.“We are working with ...

How a Netflix true crime show helped find missing South Elgin teenager

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:25:18 GMT

(NewsNation) — For six years, Kayla Unbehaun's family searched for her. Now 15 years old, Kayla is back home with help from an episode of Netflix’s "Unsolved Mysteries" series on parental abductions.Kayla was 9 years old when she went missing on July 5, 2017. She wasliving full-time with her father Ryan Iserka but visiting her non-custodial mother, Heather Unbehaun, in the Chicago suburb of South Elgin."I had gone to her house to pick up my daughter on my way home from work, and they weren't there," Iserka said during an interview in 2020. "Her family was at her house having dinner and they had told me that she didn't come back from a camping trip and they didn't know where she was." Father ‘overjoyed’ after reuniting with child abducted in South Elgin; mom charged Police issued a felony kidnapping warrant for Heather Unbehaun's arrest on July 28, 2017, according to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC).Iserka tried to stay positive, writing letters...