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Severe floods in China’s northern province killed 29 and caused tens of billions of economic losses

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 17:12:12 GMT

BEIJING (AP) — Severe floods in China’s northern province of Hebei brought by remnants of Typhoon Doksuri this month killed at least 29 people and caused billions of dollars in economic losses, its provincial government said Friday. Official news agency Xinhua reported that rescue crews were still searching for 16 missing people as of Thursday and the province’s reconstruction is expected to take two years to complete. Initial estimates showed the province’s direct economic losses amounted to 95.8 billion yuan ($13.2 billion), state media China News Service said. Last week, Hebei was hit by serious flooding as the remnants of the typhoon battered the region and brought the heaviest rainfall in neighboring Beijing in at least 140 years. Official preliminary estimates announced Friday showed 3.9 million residents, or about 5% of the province’s population, were being affected by the floods and more than 40,000 houses were collapsed, China News Service said. A f...

Ontario’s massive greenbelt scandal, explained in full

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 17:12:12 GMT

In today’s Big Story podcast, the Greenbelt is one of Ontario’s biggest environmental success stories — millions of acres of protected land that capture carbon, protect at-risk species and play a huge role in feeding the province. Unless of course the land is carved up and sold to developers to create housing.Ontario’s auditor general released a report this week that found the Doug Ford’s government, in choosing portions of land to be developed, was influenced by developers who now stand to make billions, their “information gathering and decision protocols were sidelined and abandoned” and did not consider environmental, agricultural or financial impacts of the move.Fatima Syed is an Ontario reporter for The Narwhal (Read Fatima’s and her colleague Emma McIntosh’s full coverage of the Greenbelt scandal here.) She said the stuff in the report is the sort of stuff you expect to see on TV and movies.“The sheer extent of oblivion on the pa...

Family of US publishing exec killed in Italy boat collision urges full investigation, accountability

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 17:12:12 GMT

ROME (AP) — The family of a U.S. publishing executive killed in a boating collision in southern Italy is urging Italian authorities to fully investigate the death and hold accountable anyone responsible.“We are cooperating with the Italian authorities in their investigations, and will continue to do so until they conclude,” said the statement late Thursday to The Associated Press by Mike White, husband of Adrienne Vaughan, on behalf of their family.Vaughan, the 45-year-old president of Bloomsbury Publishing’s U.S. branch, was killed Aug. 3 when the rented motorboat her family had hired slammed into a chartered sailboat off the Amalfi Coast.The motorboat’s skipper is under investigation for suspected manslaughter and causing a shipwreck, prosecutors have said. No charges have yet been announced.Salerno Prosecutor Giuseppe Borrelli said Aug. 5 that Vaughan was sunning herself on the boat’s bow and bounced into the water at the moment of impact. Two doctors who were among the pas...

South Korea throws huge K-Pop concert for Scouts after storm Khanun disrupted their Jamboree

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 17:12:12 GMT

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — A day after a powerful tropical storm flooded dozens of homes and turned streets into muddy rivers, South Korea threw a huge K-Pop concert in Seoul for 40,000 Scouts whose global Jamboree was disrupted by the weather. Friday’s concert at a wet soccer stadium featured various performers, including girl groups NewJeans and Ive. The show was quickly put together by government officials as the closing event of the World Scout Jamboree. It came as the country began to clean up and make repairs in the aftermath of the storm, Khanun, which pounded the country’s southern and eastern regions with intense rains and winds that forced thousands to evacuate and left at least one person dead after making landfall early Thursday. Khanun had weakened by the time it arrived in the densely populated Seoul metropolitan area Thursday night, and it blew into North Korea early Friday as a tropical depression.The Jamboree was held at a coastal campsite before Khanun forced ...

Highway 400 reopens following repairs to 11-foot-deep sinkhole near Bradford

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 17:12:12 GMT

Some good news for drivers on Highway 400 after an 11-foot-deep sinkhole led to road closures and traffic delays near Bradford West Gwillimbury since Monday.In an update on Thursday, Ontario Provincial Police said repairs to the sinkhole have been completed, and all affected southbound and northbound lanes of the highway at Line 5 have reopened to motorists.The left southbound lane was shut down in the area since Monday, when the sinkhole opened up along the median strip. OPP Sgt. Kerry Schmidt said the sinkhole was located in the left southbound lane approaching Line 5.The closure was then expanded on Tuesday to include the left northbound lane of the highway.On Wednesday, Sgt. Schmidt shared a new video on social media showing crews tending to the sinkhole, noting that repairs are ongoing.“The hole itself is relatively small, but underneath that hole, there is a significant cavity,” Sgt. Schmidt said.“[Crews] are going to try and get asphalt pulled away so they can get a better lo...

Summer camp in California gives Jewish children of color a haven to be different together

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 17:12:12 GMT

PETALUMA, California (AP) — One camper, from Oakland, California, has a white Jewish mother and a father who is Black and Muslim. Another was adopted in Uganda by a white Jewish woman; they now live in Montana. Like many of the young people who shared challenges and adventures with them this summer, they grew up often feeling like outliers — and then found a near-magical comfort zone at Camp Be’chol Lashon in the rolling hills of California’s Marin County. Its founders say it’s the only sleepaway summer camp specifically serving Jewish children of color, creating a safe space for candid conversations on race and identity. Isaac Harrison, the 10-year-old from Oakland, went to a traditional Jewish summer camp last year and said he was bullied by some campers for being Black. “There were no kids of color there,” he said, “Some kids kept saying that you can’t be both Black and Jewish. They said that you can’t be two things. They were just being really mean, but here no one’s mean like t...

Jakarta is the world’s most polluted city. Blame the dry season and vehicles for the gray skies

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 17:12:12 GMT

JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) — The dry season and and motorized vehicles are the main causes of the air pollution in Jakarta, Indonesian authorities said Friday, after a Swiss air quality technology company named the city as the most polluted in the world. Thick smoke and gray skies have appeared every morning for the past few months in Jakarta, the capital city of the world’s fourth most populous country.Jakarta routinely tops listings of the world’s most polluted cities, most recently in a ranking by IQAir, which is based in Switzerland. “In fact, the condition of Jakarta’s air quality throughout 2023 has fluctuated quite a bit,” Asep Kuswanto, head of Jakarta Environment Agency said at a conference on Friday.Indonesia is now in the dry season, which runs from July to September, when air pollution will peak. Air quality in the greater Jakarta area deteriorates as it is impacted by dry air from the eastern side of the country.The use of motorized vehicles is also a major fac...

Scuffles break out outside Athens court as arrested Croatian soccer fans testify over deadly attack

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 17:12:12 GMT

ATHENS, Greece (AP) — Clashes broke out in front of court buildings in Athens where scores of arrested Croatian soccer supporters were giving evidence Friday following deadly fan violence this week.Some 200 fans of AEK Athens gathered outside the court complex, some hurling bottles of water and other objects at police and television crews.No arrests or injuries were reported.A Champions League qualifier between AEK and Dinamo Zagreb was called off Tuesday after scores of Croatian supporters wielding wooden clubs and metal bats attacked bystanders outside AEK’s Opap Arena.One AEK fan, 29 year-old Michalis Katsouris, died at the scene from a stab wound, while 10 others were injured.More than 100 people were arrested — mostly Dinamo fans — and have been charged with murder, membership of a criminal gang and other offenses.A funeral service for Katsouris was due to be held later Friday at his hometown of Elefsina, 25 kilometers (15 miles) west of Athens. Local authorities suspended seve...

Why are millions of kids missing weeks of school across US?

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 17:12:12 GMT

SPRINGFIELD, Mass. (AP) — When in-person school resumed after pandemic closures, Rousmery Negrón and her 11-year-old son both noticed a change: School seemed less welcoming.Parents were no longer allowed in the building without appointments, she said, and punishments were more severe. Everyone seemed less tolerant, more angry. Negrón's son told her he overheard a teacher mocking his learning disabilities, calling him an ugly name.Her son didn’t want to go to school anymore. And she didn’t feel he was safe there.He would end up missing more than five months of sixth grade.Across the country, students have been absent at record rates since schools reopened during the pandemic. More than a quarter of students missed at least 10% of the 2021-22 school year, making them chronically absent, according to the most recent data available. Before the pandemic, only 15% of students missed that much school.All told, an estimated 6.5 million additional students became chronically a...

Suicide rate hits all-time high in US last year

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 17:12:12 GMT

NEW YORK (AP) — About 49,500 people took their own lives last year in the U.S., the highest number ever, according to new government data posted Thursday.The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which posted the numbers, has not yet calculated a suicide rate for the year, but available data suggests suicides are more common in the U.S. than at any time since the dawn of World War II.“There's something wrong. The number should not be going up,” said Christina Wilbur, a 45-year-old Florida woman whose son shot himself to death last year.“My son should not have died,” she said. "I know it's complicated, I really do. But we have to be able to do something. Something that we're not doing. Because whatever we're doing right now is not helping."Experts caution that suicide is complicated and that recent increases might be driven by a range of factors, including higher rates of depression and limited availability of mental health services.But a main driver is the growing availab...