In 2023, the Texas Legislature unanimously passed a law raising auto insurance costs for Texans by $1 to combat rampant catalytic converter theft. Three years later, a little-known state agency has devoted at least $30 million of that fee toward supercharging the state’s Flock surveillance network, placing cameras along highways and streets from El Paso […]

Crowsnest Pass council has advanced and deferred numerous initiatives for the 2027 budget process during a special budget meeting Aug. 19. The decisions came during the first review of council’s budget initiatives and were not final spending approvals. Administration told council that moving an initiative forward meant working out its details and including it for […]

When Honolulu Mayor Rick Blangiardi decided he wanted pandas at the Honolulu Zoo, he approached the Chinese Consulate-General in Los Angeles, who gave him some advice: Go to China. The trip, a 10-day whirlwind this past spring taken by Blangiardi and his wife, who was born in Beijing, cost taxpayers roughly $30,000 and involved the […]

For years, St. Catharines firefighters have answered call after call about the former General Motors property on Ontario Street, responding to fires, signs of smoke and medical emergencies at the deteriorating industrial site in the heart of the city.  Numerous reports detail a high level of risk to firefighters entering the crumbling buildings, confirming what […]

When the federal and provincial governments promote themselves as friends of the environment, while pushing legislation and projects that will devastate landscapes and impact our well being, who holds them accountable for the blatant greenwashing? Perhaps no one. “There’s little greenwashing specific laws in Canada overall, and there are no laws that prohibit the government […]

MIAMI (AP) — A controversial policing tactic that permitted staggering amounts of deadly fentanyl to reach the streets as federal authorities sought to build bigger drug cases is now under investigation by Republicans on the House Oversight Committee. The committee’s chairman, Rep. James Comer, a Republican from Kentucky, sent a letter Monday to Attorney General […]

Most Canadians could be forgiven for assuming a mine in Nunavut pays corporate income taxes. After all, Baffinland Iron Mines is the third-largest employer in the territory, behind the Government of Nunavut and Agnico Eagle Mines.  But Nunavut News could not find any evidence of Baffinland paying a single dollar of corporate income taxes to […]

WASHINGTON (AP) — The FBI is dropping a categorical hiring ban on applicants who have had sexual encounters with prostitutes and will instead consider in a more holistic manner at least some candidates who have engaged in the practice in the past, according to people familiar with the matter. The move away from an automatic […]

They are thousands of kilometres from their home country, but the Colombian diaspora in Canada remains connected to their roots and has coordinated efforts to help, sending money to local organizations in Colombia rather than sending supplies directly from Canada to speed the process. Montreal resident María José Contento’s family lives in Cali, one of […]

CHICAGO (AP) — A beluga whale died days after it was transported hundreds of miles to a Chicago aquarium from a shuttered Ontario park as part of an ongoing effort to rescue Canada’s last captive whales. The whale, a 23-year-old female named Peekachu, died suddenly Tuesday as caretakers tried to rehydrate her, Chicago’s Shedd Aquarium […]

Tennessee National Guard members assigned to a federal anti-crime task force in Memphis fatally shot an armed 20-year-old man in the back, according to an autopsy report obtained Thursday by The Associated Press, contradicting police accounts that said the man was facing the troops when they fired. Authorities have said that Tyrin Johnson turned toward […]

The association representing career colleges in Ontario began warning the government about possible “suspicious” student financial aid activity at a few campuses three years ago, documents show. Career Colleges Ontario also asked the government to refer certain related concerns to police, though the details of those concerns and whether they apply to any particular institutions […]