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More than 100 homes damaged when tornado hits suburb of Canada’s capital

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:26:40 GMT

OTTAWA, Ontario (AP) — At least one tornado hit a suburb of Canada’s capital Thursday, damaging more than 100 homes, authorities said. Kim Ayotte, general manager of emergency and protective services for the city of Ottawa, said 125 homes were damaged in Half Moon Bay, a neighborhood in the southern end of the Barrhaven suburb.He said most damage involved roofs being ripped, windows broken or damage inflicted by falling trees.“It’s a variety of damage from small damage to quite substantial damage,” he said.He said only one minor injury had been reported involving someone whose foot was cut.Monica Vaswani, a warning preparedness meteorologist at Environment Canada, said several funnel clouds were reported in the Ottawa area Thursday afternoon but only one tornado had been confirmed as of midafternoon.The community is about 14 miles south of Parliament Hill on Ottawa’s rapidly growing south end. Laurie Gillespie said her 82-year-old mother and her sister were at the home when he...

Soda sweetener aspartame now listed as possible cancer cause. But it’s still considered safe

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:26:40 GMT

The World Health Organization’s cancer agency has deemed the sweetener aspartame — found in diet soda and countless other foods — as a “possible” cause of cancer, while a separate expert group looking at the same evidence said it still considers the sugar substitute safe in limited quantities.The differing results of the coordinated reviews were released early Friday. One came from the International Agency for Research on Cancer, a special branch of the WHO. The other report was from an expert panel selected by WHO and another U.N. group, the Food and Agriculture Organization. The Lyon, France-based cancer agency periodically reviews potential cancer hazards, but doesn’t determine how likely they are to cause cancer in their evaluations which range from “possibly” carcinogenic to “probably” to cancer-causing. Aspartame joins a category with more than 300 other possible cancer-causing agents, including things like aloe vera extract, Asian-style pickled vegetables and carp...

Twitter comienza a pagar a los creadores de contenido; mira cuánto podrías ganar

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:26:40 GMT

NUEVA YORK- Twitter comenzó a compartir con los creadores de contenido el dinero generado por publicidad cuando esta aparece en los comentarios a sus tuits, una medida que hace cinco meses anunció el dueño de la red social, Elon Musk, pero aún no había puesto en práctica.La medida ya fue aplaudida por algunos de los beneficiarios: “Amo Twitter”, tuiteó este jueves Billy Markus, el cocreador de la criptomoneda Dogecoin, junto con un pantallazo en el que se veía que la red social le dará en los próximos días $37.05.Musk señaló que los primeros pagos, que retribuyen a los creadores por los anuncios que aparecen en los comentarios de sus tuits, serían acumulativos desde que anunció el programa por primera vez en febrero. ¿Furioso Twitter? Threads arrasa con récord histórico de descargas en su primera semana Twitter enfrenta tremenda demanda de unos $500 millones por parte de sus exempleados Para poder acceder a estos pagos...

MDPD receives 10 electric bikes from Vera Cadillac-Buick-GMC

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:26:40 GMT

The Miami-Dade Police Department received 10 electric bikes from a Doral dealership. The GMC Hummer all-wheel-drive bicycles will help officers to be more visible in the community and patrol a larger area that would normally be covered by the traditional bicycles currently being used.The bicycles were provided by Vera Cadillac-Buick-GMC. The dealership’s vice president and general manager, Richard Gonzalez, spoke at a news conference held Thursday. “This Hummer bike will be safer for our officers than a regular bike, and they will be more capable for them to do their job,” said Gonzalez. “With a Hummer EV bike, officers will cover more ground on a more frequent basis with a lower cost and lower effort than a regular bike.” The new addition is part of an effort to increase safety for the Miami-Dade community.

Dog dies after fire sparks in house near Fort Lauderdale

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:26:40 GMT

A pet was trapped by flames in a home near Fort Lauderdale.The house that caught fire is located in the Broadview Park neighborhood, near Southwest 50th Avenue, Thursday afternoon.Firefighters say the dog that was inside the home did not survive.The residents were not there at the time.Officials said it is too early to tell what ignited the blaze.

France will pay you to repair your clothes

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:26:40 GMT

Paris/London (CNN) — France is to introduce a scheme that will subsidize repairs to clothing and shoes in order to cut waste and planet-heating pollution from the textile industry.Under the scheme, which was announced by secretary of state for ecology Bérangère Couillard Tuesday, discounts varying from €6 ($7) to €25 ($28) will be available depending on the complexity of the repair.For instance, a simple piece of restitching will receive a €6 subsidy, while resoling a pair of shows will qualify for a €25 rebate.“It could encourage exactly the people who have bought, for example, shoes from a brand that makes good-quality shoes or likewise good-quality ready-to-wear to want to have them fixed instead of getting rid of them,” Couillard said at a news conference.“And that is exactly the objective, to create a circular economy for shoes and textiles so that products last longer, because in government we believe in the second life of a product.”Couillard said the text...

Union: 35,000 911 calls went unanswered by Boston Police in 2022

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:26:40 GMT

Roughly 35,000 emergency calls went unanswered by Boston Police Department dispatchers last year, a serious lapse one union representative says is due to an understaffed and overworked operations division.Operations employees have been ordered to work double shifts, or 16-hour days, three to five times a week for the past three years, according to Neal O’Brien, senior business representative for SEIU Local 888.This often results in dispatchers working 90 hours per week, O’Brien wrote in a letter to Police Commissioner Michael Cox.“Some operations workers have become so fatigued with this abusive work schedule, that in some instances have reached their breaking points and have risen from their chairs unannounced, rifled their headsets to the floor and stated they quit,” O’Brien wrote.According to the department’s rules and procedures, officers are limited to working 18 hours per day and 90 hours per week, but there is leeway for supervisors to approve additional overtime....

Christopher Bell set to defend Cup Series title in New Hampshire

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:26:40 GMT

New Hampshire Motor Speedway is a demanding and uniquely configured short race track that requires a lengthy courtship of trial and error for drivers to get a handle on it.There have been a few exceptions to that hard and fast rule of NASCAR Cup Series racing on the Magic Mile and nobody has adjusted to its quirky nuances better than Christopher Bell.Bell is the operator of the No. 20 Toyota Camry for Joe Gibbs Racing and on Sunday (2:30 p.m.) he will defend his title in the running of the Crayon 301 at NHMS.“I love going up to New Hampshire Motor Speedway, it has been a really good race track for me in the past,” said Bell. “It is always nice break in the middle of the summer to get out of the (hot) weather and I’m excited to get up north.“It’s been a great race track for me and the track is very unique in the fact that turns one and two are really smooth and three and four are very rough. It is very flat everywhere but has a little bit more banking when running up the track from t...

MBTA adds commercial driver’s permit program to bus operator training amid shortage

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:26:40 GMT

A bus driver shortage at the MBTA led the agency to incorporate a commercial driver’s license permit program into new hire onboarding, a move the authority’s top hiring official said helped boost recruitment efforts and bring in more candidates.The workforce challenge has plagued the MBTA since last year, where officials have turned to sign-on bonuses and hiked pay for operators in an attempt to attract more people. But even if applicants made it all the way to a job offer, the commercial driver’s license requirement was still a “barrier to entry,” said Gil Alzate, director of talent acquisition at the MBTA.The MBTA started by offering a “CDL familiarization course” hosted twice a month on Tuesdays before offering an opportunity to obtain a commercial learner’s permit program as part of new-hire training, Alzate said.“So now we hire folks, clean driving record, they meet all our policy requirements, and we embed them into the program. The first two weeks are targeted around getting ...

Got Sriracha? The price for a bottle of Huy Fong’s iconic hot sauce gets spicy with supplies short

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:26:40 GMT

By WYATTE GRANTHAM-PHILIPS (AP Business Writer)NEW YORK (AP) — It’s not just you. Sriracha is hard to come by these days — at least for one popular brand.The shortage of Huy Fong Foods’ Sriracha, the beloved red hot sauce packaged in those green-capped bottles, isn’t new — with the company pointing to a scarcity of chile pepper supply for several years now. And as frustrated fans continue to face store shelves missing the Huy Fong name, third-party resellers are punching up prices.Huy Fong Sriracha, which used to go for under $5 or $10 a bottle, is now selling for shocking amounts in some listings posted to sites with vast third-party marketplaces — including Amazon, eBay and Walmart. Many are simply sold out.For those still in stock, prices range depending where you look. As of Thursday morning, for example, ads for a single 17-ounce bottle on eBay stretched from around $20 to a whopping $150 — contrasting significantly from the price...