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Directors must navigate TIFF without their lead actors amid Hollywood strike

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:14:51 GMT

TORONTO — Promoting a film at the Toronto International Film Festival is inherently challenging, and even more difficult in the absence of lead actors for support during press engagements and on the red carpet.Many directors are grappling with this amid the ongoing strike by the Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, which prevents actors from publicizing their studio projects. Filmmaker Atom Egoyan, who will premiere his opera-inspired feature “Seven Veils” at TIFF, said in a recent interview that he has complicated feelings about promoting the movie without its lead, Amanda Seyfried.  “She has put so much of herself in this film and it’s inconceivable that Amanda would not be here,” he said. The American actress has said that she is proud of the film but would not attend the TIFF premiere even though “Seven Veils,” an independent Canadian movie, received a “waiver” from SAG-AFTRA.“It doesn’t feel right to head t...

New questions for wind, solar in Alberta create more confusion for industry: advocate

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:14:51 GMT

EDMONTON — A renewable energy group says new requirements for wind and solar projects create further problems for a booming industry that government policy has already slowed.On Wednesday, the Alberta Utilities Commission released a series of information requests those proposing new projects will be required to answer.Jorden Dye of the Business Renewables Centre says some of those questions are reasonable and are already part of the approval process. But he says others seem arbitrary. He asks how regulators will judge whether a project imposes on a pristine viewscape.He says it’s not clear how much weight the new requirements will be given.Dye says the renewables industry is being singled out and that the six-month approval pause on new renewable projects imposed by the United Conservative government has already increased costs for developers. This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 7, 2023. The Canadian Press

Via Rail ramps up service, returning it to pre-pandemic levels

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:14:51 GMT

MONTREAL — Via Rail is increasing service in Ontario, returning the passenger railway to levels not seen since before the COVID-19 pandemic.The Crown corporation says it is reintroducing two round trips between Toronto and Ottawa and one round trip between London and Toronto, starting in late October.The ramp-up comes three-and-a-half years after the pandemic brought some operations to a screeching halt, when Via Rail suspended its cross-Canada routes and temporarily laid off more than 1,000 workers.Chief executive Mario Péloquin says the railway aims to strike a balance between meeting passengers’ travel needs and deploying its limited resources.Last quarter, operating losses before government funding hit $120 million, and the organization has not turned a full-year profit since 2017.Greg Gormick, who heads On Track Consulting, says the expanded service announced Thursday will resemble Via’s timetable prior to COVID-19, enabled by crew training and new train deliveries from S...

Trapped US explorer thanks authorities for saving his life in emotional video from Turkish cave

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:14:51 GMT

ISTANBUL (AP) — In his first emotional video deep down a Turkish cave, a trapped U.S. explorer has thanked authorities for saving his life. “I was very close to the edge,” said Mark Dickey in the video dated Sept. 6 that was made available to The Associated Press by Turkish authorities on Thursday. Rescue experts from across Europe have converged on the cave in southern Turkey to save Dickey who became trapped around 1,000 meters (3,000 feet) below the surface after suffering stomach bleeding. THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. AP’s earlier story follows below.ISTANBUL (AP) — Rescue experts from across Europe converged on a cave in Turkey on Thursday, launching an operation to save an American researcher who became trapped around 1,000 meters (3,000 feet) below the surface after suffering gastrointestinal bleeding.Experienced caver Mark Dickey, 40, suddenly became ill during an expedition in the Morca cave in southern Turkey’s Taurus Mountains, the European Association of Cave Re...

Mexican Supreme Court’s abortion decision expands access to millions, stands in contrast to US

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:14:51 GMT

MEXICO CITY (AP) — The decision by Mexico’s Supreme Court to invalidate all federal criminal penalties for abortion opened access for millions of people in the sprawling public health system a year after the court’s U.S. counterpart went in the opposite direction.Under Mexico’s legal system, however, the ruling did not invalidate all criminal penalties for abortion, which remained on the books Thursday in 20 of Mexico’s 32 states.Those differences help explain why Wednesday’s ruling, while a dramatic change in this predominantly Catholic nation, was not Roe v. Wade, the 1973 U.S. Supreme Court ruling guaranteeing women’s access to abortion. The ruling does mean that government health providers will not need to worry about federal penalties for abortion, because the court ruled that they were an unconstitutional violation of women’s human rights.Millions of Mexican women receive health-care services from the national government, granting the ruling...

Slave descendants on Georgia island face losing protections that helped them keep their land

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:14:51 GMT

SAVANNAH, Ga. (AP) — Descendants of enslaved people who populate a tiny island community are once again fighting local officials who have proposed eliminating protections that for decades helped shield the Gullah-Geechee residents from high taxes and pressure to sell their land to developers.Residents of Hogg Hummock say they were stunned last month when McIntosh County commissioners unveiled a proposal to cast aside zoning ordinances that limit homes to modest sizes in the enclave of 30 to 50 Black residents on Sapelo Island off the coast of Georgia.The rules were enacted in 1994 for the sole purpose of protecting one of the South’s few remaining communities of people known as Gullah, or Geechee in Georgia, whose ancestors worked island slave plantations. Their isolation from the mainland meant they retained much of their African roots and traditions.Residents say losing zoning protections would drive out Hogg Hummock residents by attracting wealthy transplants eager to build...

Parking enforcement officer’s vehicle T-boned in downtown crash

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:14:51 GMT

A parking enforcement officer suffered minor injuries in a crash with another vehicle in downtown Toronto on Thursday afternoon.Police say the officer was inside their car when it was T-boned by another vehicle.The officer was taken to hospital.Police say the circumstances surrounding the crash aren’t yet clear.Roads in the area were briefly closed but have since reopened.A parking enforcement vehicle was involved in a crash with another vehicle in downtown Toronto on Sept. 7, 2023. CITYNEWS/Hugues Cormier 

Federal prediction says parts of Canada could see wildfires through winter

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:14:51 GMT

OTTAWA — The latest federal government forecast says Canada’s already unprecedented 2023 wildfire season could continue late into the fall or winter.Energy and Natural Resources Minister Jonathan Wilkinson says there is potential for increased wildland fire activity from eastern Alberta through to central Ontario at least until the end of this month, while fires in B.C. and the Northwest Territories will continue to smoulder. Although fall brings cooler nights and fewer lightning storms, a government statement says ongoing warm and dry weather could contribute to new fire starts, and mean some existing large fires could remain active for months.Wilkinson also announced $65 million in federal funding for wildfire equipment and other supports for British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Nova Scotia, Yukon and Northwest Territories.He says B.C. and the Northwest Territories have signed deals to receive their full allotments under Ottawa’s wildfire and equipment fund, amount...

Probe of Florida building collapse that killed 98 to be completed by June 2025, US investigators say

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:14:51 GMT

The probe into the 2021 collapse of a beachfront condominium building that killed 98 people in South Florida should be completed by the fourth anniversary of the disaster, federal officials said Thursday.The investigation led by the National Institute of Standards & Technology is looking into two dozen different scenarios that could explain why the 12-story Champlain Towers South building in Surfside, Florida, abruptly failed early in the morning of June 24, 2021, they said. Surfside is a suburb north of Miami.“We’re still not prepared to close the door on any of them yet,” said Glenn Bell, associate team lead of the Champlain Towers probe. “We are still testing, testing, testing.”Bell told a meeting of NIST’s National Construction Safety Team Advisory Committee on Thursday that most of the intensive work on such things as concrete core samples, corrosion in reinforcing bars and evidence of subpar construction in the 40-year-old building will be done by next spring, ...

Maui beckons tourists, and their dollars, to stave off economic disaster after wildfires

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:14:51 GMT

KAHULUI, Hawaii (AP) — Richie Olsten has been in Maui’s helicopter tour business for a half century, so long he’s developed a barometer for the tourism-dependent economy: rental cars parked at the island’s airport. There are so many since wildfires killed 115 people in the historic town of Lahaina that Olsten is worried about a full-blown economic catastrophe. Restaurants and tour companies are laying off workers and unemployment is surging. State tourism officials, after initially urging travelers to stay away, are now asking them to come back, avoid the burn zone and help Maui recover by spending their money. Airlines have started offering steep discounts, while some resorts have slashed room rates by 20% or are offering a fifth night free.“I know what a terrible disaster that was. But now we’re in crisis mode,” Olsten said. “If we can’t keep the people that have jobs employed, how are they going to help family members and friends that lost everything...