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Financial pressures could impact Canadians’ holiday spending: survey

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:50:53 GMT

New survey data suggests that Canadians are planning on reining in their holiday spending this year.Deloitte’s fifth annual holiday retail outlook survey has found that Canadians are expected to spend 11 per cent less for the holiday season than compared to last year, for an average of $1,347 per person.The findings show that growing financial pressures may be the cause for this drop. Two-thirds of respondents said they’re concerned about a recession, while 55 per cent are worried about rent and mortgage increases.“You add all those things together which are obviously grounded in inflation, economic risk, and whatnot, they’re feeling extreme pressure,” said Marty Weintraub, National Retail Leader with Deloitte.It’s not just the holiday season that may suffer from these fears, as Weintraub says Halloween also falls under the umbrella of the holiday spending season.“Halloween, I would say, is sort of encompassed in the holiday shopping season ...

Musician Mike Skinner turns actor and director with ‘The Darker the Shadow, the Brighter the Light’

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:50:53 GMT

LONDON (AP) — Mike Skinner is doing it all himself — even if it takes years.He wrote, directed, edited and starred in a feature-length movie, “The Darker the Shadow, the Brighter the Light.” It is accompanied by an album of the same name released last Friday — the first album from The Streets in 12 years. Formed in London in the early 1990s, The Streets’ debut record “Original Pirate Material” was released in 2002 and became an instant classic. Their lyrics reference club culture, hangovers in cafes and dating celebrities, but also topics like male fragility in “Dry Your Eyes” and battles with grief in “Never Went to Church.”Skinner’s movie “The Darker the Shadow, the Brighter the Light” is described as a “neo-noir detective film” but instead of a private eye solving the case, it’s a DJ. Though obviously nonfiction, it references Skinner’s life as a DJ in his mid-40s — taking place in backstage rooms, on dance floors and behind decks and in the backseats of c...

Environmental group challenges federal action on protecting endangered spotted owl

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:50:53 GMT

VANCOUVER — An environmental group is in Federal Court in Vancouver challenging what it describes as Ottawa’s failure to protect the endangered northern spotted owl despite an “imminent threat” to its recovery.The Wilderness Committee, represented by environmental law charity Ecojustice, says federal Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault delayed by eight months recommending an emergency order to cabinet that would have protected the owl in B.C.’s Fraser Canyon. Ecojustice lawyer Kegan Pepper-Smith told the court that the Wilderness Committee initially petitioned the federal government last October to raise the issue well ahead of the 2023 logging season, where the old growth forest that spotted owls rely on could be threatened. Pepper-Smith said Guilbeault had the responsibility under Canada’s Species at Risk Act to respond to the imminent threat to the recovery of the spotted owl population, given the animal’s endangered status.The federal gover...

Far-right influencer sentenced to 7 months in 2016 voter suppression scheme

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:50:53 GMT

NEW YORK (AP) — A right-wing social media influencer was sentenced to seven months in federal prison on Wednesday for spreading falsehoods via Twitter, now known as X, in an effort to suppress Democratic turnout in the 2016 presidential election.Douglass Mackey, who posted under the alias Ricky Vaughn, was convicted in March of the charge of conspiracy against rights after a trial in federal court in Brooklyn.Prosecutors said Mackey, who had 58,000 Twitter followers, conspired with others between September and November of 2016 to post falsely that supporters of Democrat Hillary Clinton could vote for her by text message or social media post.For example, they said, Mackey tweeted a photo of a woman standing in front of an “African Americans for Hillary” sign. “Avoid the Line. Vote from Home,” the tweet said. “Text ‘Hillary’ to 59925.”U.S. Attorney Breon Peace said in a statement that Mackey “weaponized disinformation in a dangerous scheme to stop targeted groups, including blac...

Search continues for inmate who escaped from Houston courthouse amid brawl in courtroom

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:50:53 GMT

HOUSTON (AP) — The search continued Wednesday for an inmate who managed to walk out of a Houston courthouse after being left unattended by deputies who were responding to a brawl in a nearby courtroom.At around 10 a.m. Tuesday, Michael Devon Combs was being detained in what is normally a secured holding area for individuals in custody. The holding area was located in the back of a courtroom on the 19th floor of Houston’s criminal courthouse, said Mark Lipkin, Combs’ attorney. Lipkin was in the holding area with Combs and had spoken with him just before his escape.“I had my back to him when everything happened. I mean, if I were just able to give him some advice, I would have told him it’s not smart to do that. Don’t do it,” Lipkin said.In the holding area, which cannot be seen by the public, Combs sat on a metal bench and had a shackle, like “handcuffs for the feet,” around his ankle, Lipkin said. The shackle was attached to a metal pole on the bench.Combs, 32, was waiting for a cou...

Fugees rapper says lawyer’s use of AI helped tank his case, pushes for new trial

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:50:53 GMT

WASHINGTON (AP) — The trial of a Fugees rapper, who was convicted this year in multimillion-dollar political conspiracies, stretched across the worlds of politics and entertainment — and now the case is touching on the tech world with arguments that his defense attorney bungled the case, in part, by using an artificial intelligence program to write his closing arguments.Prakazrel “Pras” Michel argued that use of the “experimental” generative AI program was one of a number of errors his previous attorney made a trial for which he was “unqualified, unprepared and ineffectual,” according to a motion for new trial his new lawyers filed this week. The company behind the program, on the other hand, said it was a tool used to help write closing statements, and a harbinger of major changes in the field. Generative AI programs are capable of creating realistic text, images and video. They’re raising tough questions about misinformation and copyright protections as well as industr...

Children’s soccer club celebrating Latin roots for decades

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:50:53 GMT

For decades, a soccer league in Toronto has provided a way for Chilean immigrants to adjust to life in a new country and since then, it has grown to so much more than that.Colo Colo was first established in 1979. Eduardo Ramon, the coach and president of the club, said his family has been involved with it for years as his father and grandfather both ran the club prior to Ramon taking over.“At least once a week the community was able to get together with people from similar backgrounds and were able to share something from home and bring it back to this beautiful new country Canada,” said Ramon.Over the decades, the Colo Colo has grown expanding to a youth club including children from other Latin American backgrounds. Related: Hispanic Heritage Month to recognize the contribution of Hispanic and Latin Canadians Group breaking barriers in receiving mental health support for Hispanic women in the GTA Javier Santos, an Ecuadorian-Canadian, used to pl...

Archeology work the latest roadblock to rebuild Lytton, B.C.: Mayor

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:50:53 GMT

LYTTON, B.C. — Former Lytton, B.C., residents are rallying to protest continual delays that they say have hampered their ability to rebuild more than two years after a devastating wildfire tore through the village in June 2021.Lytton Mayor Denise O’Connor says costly archeological work is the latest roadblock for residents, and follows debris cleanup, foundation and soil removals and backfilling.The village was partially built on an ancient archeological site and burial ground and is protected under B.C.’s Heritage Conservation Act.Village council awarded a provincially funded contract in March 2022 to the consulting firm AEW for archeological and heritage monitoring, which was formed in 2017 by the Nlaka’pamux Nation Tribal member communities.A statement from AEW says the “assertion that archeology has delayed the recovery and remediation is a false narrative based on misinformation,” noting that the work has been done concurrently with recovery, remediation and b...

Former official accused in Las Vegas journalist killing hires lawyer, gets trial date pushed back

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:50:53 GMT

LAS VEGAS (AP) — A Nevada judge on Wednesday pushed back to next March a trial date for a former Las Vegas-area elected official who remains jailed and has been serving as his own defense attorney in the killing of an investigative reporter more than a year ago.Robert Telles, once the Democratic county administrator of estates, used his court appearance to inform Clark County District Court Judge Michelle Leavitt that he hired another lawyer, Gary Modafferi, to assist in his murder defense.Modafferi, a defense attorney in Las Vegas for 12 years, was not in the courtroom. He told The Associated Press by telephone that he has, since August, been advising Telles on constitutional matters including how police gather evidence. Modafferi said he does not plan to argue matters in court.Telles has pleaded not guilty in the September 2022 killing of Las Vegas Review-Journal reporter Jeff German and had insisted since his arrest that he wanted the earliest possible trial date. But after Telle...

REVIEW: ‘Wonder’ brings Super Mario back to his roots, with a few twists

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:50:53 GMT

TORONTO — Super Mario is returning to his old stomping grounds for the first time in more than a decade.The mustachioed plumber is best known as the prototypical hero of Nintendo’s popular two-dimensional platform games. In fact, he helped originate the genre (in his non-super form) in the 1981 arcade classic “Donkey Kong.”But in the 11 years since the release of “New Super Mario Bros. U” — the last original side-scrolling platformer in the franchise — Mario has been pursuing other interests. He’s appeared in a handful of 3D adventures, kept up with his lucrative racing career, competed at several Olympic Games and starred in an animated movie that raked in a worldwide box office of US$1.36 billion. “Super Mario Bros. Wonder,” out this Friday for the Nintendo Switch gaming system, returns the iconic character to his iconic milieu. The result is a game that has all the hallmarks of a classic Super Mario adventure with enough innovation ...