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King of the Netherlands apologizes for country’s role in slavery on 150th anniversary of abolition

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 20:00:53 GMT

AMSTERDAM (AP) — King Willem-Alexander of the Netherlands apologized Saturday for his country’s role in slavery and asked for forgiveness during a historic speech greeted by cheers and whoops at an event to commemorate the anniversary of the abolition of slavery in Dutch colonies.The king’s speech followed Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte’s apology late last year for the country’s role in the slave trade and slavery. The public expressions of remorse are part of a wider reckoning with colonial histories in the West that the Black Lives Matter movement spurred in recent years.In his emotional address, Willem-Alexander referred back to the prime minister’s apology as he told a crowd of invited guests and onlookers: “Today, I stand before you. Today, as your king and as a member of the government, I make this apology myself. And I feel the weight of the words in my heart and my soul.”The king said he has commissioned a study into the exact role of the royal House of Or...

Australia is the first nation to let patients with depression or PTSD be prescribed psychedelics

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 20:00:53 GMT

SYDNEY (AP) — Australia is now the first country to allow psychiatrists to prescribe certain psychedelic substances to patients with depression or post-traumatic stress disorder.Beginning Saturday, Australian physicians can prescribe doses of MDMA, also known as ecstasy, for PTSD. Psilocybin, the psychoactive ingredient in psychedelic mushrooms, can be given to people who have hard-to-treat depression. The country put the two drugs on the list of approved medicines by the Therapeutic Goods Administration. Scientists in Australia were surprised by the move, which was announced in February but took effect July 1. One scientist said it puts Australian “at the forefront of research in this field.”Chris Langmead, deputy director of the Neuromedicines Discovery Centre at the Monash Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences, said there have been very few advancements on treatment of persistent mental health issues in the last 50 years. The growing cultural acceptance has led two U.S. states to ...

Risk of storms in Toronto for evening as Canada Day celebrations continue

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 20:00:53 GMT

Environment Canada has ended the severe thunderstorm watch for the GTA, advising that heavy rain, strong winds and hail could all be in the forecast.Storms are still expected this evening as people in Toronto and surrounding areas celebrate Canada Day.Some programming, like Mel Lastman Square’s Canada Day celebrations, was paused due to weather conditions, but has resumed with a revised schedule.Canada Day programming has resumed at Mel Lastman Square with a revised schedule. Coming up are mainstage activities with Mis Blandine, Cuban salsa & voguing dance lessons, Trash Panda Brass Band and Beny Esguerra & New Tradition Music. https://t.co/xoZ7VMm0Ov #CanadaDayTO— City of Toronto Culture (@culture_to) July 1, 2023“We are expecting a few strong storms to pop up across the GTA and Golden Horseshoe this afternoon and evening,” says CityNews 680 weather specialist Denise Andreacchi.The area was initially under a severe thunderstorm watch issued just after 1:20 p.m.,...

Belarusian Aryna Sabalenka says she won’t discuss the Ukraine war while at Wimbledon

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 20:00:53 GMT

WIMBLEDON, England (AP) — Before Aryna Sabalenka heard any questions from reporters at her pre-Wimbledon media session Saturday, she announced that she was willing to talk only about her sport — and not the war in Ukraine that became a contentious topic for the Belarusian during the last Grand Slam event.“I would like to say I’m not going to talk about politics. I’m here to talk about tennis only. Please respect that,” Sabalenka told reporters. “If you have any kind of political questions, you can ask the WTA or the tournament. They can send you the transcript of my answers from the previous tournaments.”Sabalenka is seeded No. 2 at the All England Club and considered among the main contenders for the title. She won the Australian Open in January, then reached the semifinals at the French Open in June — when she skipped two news conferences after saying queries about the war and Belarus’ role in helping Russia attack Ukraine made her uncomfortable.When she was asked Saturday whether...

NYC school officials say yeshivas run by Hasidic community fail to teach students in core subjects

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 20:00:53 GMT

NEW YORK (AP) — Eighteen private Jewish schools run by New York City’s politically powerful Hasidic community deprived thousands of students the required secular education in English, math, science and social studies that they need to function successfully outside their religious enclaves, according to findings from an eight-year investigation by New York City school officials.The eight-year investigation — which critics say was long delayed because of politics — concluded that many of the religious schools, or yeshivas, were not providing “substantially equivalent instruction” in core subjects as do public schools — as mandated by state law.In a letter to at least one school, NYC schools Chancellor David Banks expressed concern that students were not being instructed in key subjects “sufficient to prepare them for their futures.”A review of more than two dozen yeshivas, which receive hundreds of millions public funding, determined that only seven of those schools were in comp...

NASCAR Cup Series drivers praise setup for 1st street race in downtown Chicago

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 20:00:53 GMT

CHICAGO (AP) — Before NASCAR raced in the Los Angeles Coliseum in 2022, Kevin Harvick thought it was going to be a disaster. It didn’t take very long for the event to win him over.Heading into the Cup Series’ first street race, Harvick is keeping an open mind.“Going through all these new types of events kind of changes your mindset to how you approach it,” he said, “because you see the enthusiasm, right, like you can feel it, you can see it.”After months of hype and curiosity, the NASCAR Cup Series hits the streets of downtown Chicago on Sunday at the end of a big weekend for the sport that includes concerts and other entertainment.The 12-turn, 2.2-mile course includes seven 90-degree turns. There are lots of ways to get into trouble, including manhole covers, and transitions from concrete to asphalt and back. Getting in and out of pit road in front of Buckingham Fountain could become an issue, and restarts also could be an adventure.“It’s obviously narrow in secti...

Smog, air quality alerts in place across much of Quebec as wildfires continue to burn

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 20:00:53 GMT

MONTREAL — Environment Canada has issued a smog warning for a large part of Quebec as forest fires continue to burn in the provinces northwest.The federal department says smog can be expected in the northwestern Abitibi-Témiscamingue region, as well as in a large area stretching from Gatineau, Que., near Ottawa, to the province’s eastern border with the state of Maine.That area includes Montreal, which has experienced several smog days this week, and Quebec City.Environment Canada has issued an air quality alert for other areas further north, including parts of the province’s far north. Quebec’s wildfire prevention agency says there are 96 fires currently burning in the province, including one new fire reported on Friday, though only three are considered out of control.All Quebec residents who had been forced from their homes by the blazes have been allowed to return, though an evacuation order remains in place for a rural area with 60 cottages in the city of Senne...

Pope appoints bishop from his native Argentina to lead Vatican office that enforces church doctrine

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 20:00:53 GMT

VATICAN CITY (AP) — Pope Francis on Saturday chose a bishop who is a trusted theological advisor from his native Argentina for one of the Vatican’s most powerful positions — head of the watchdog office that ensures doctrinal orthodoxy. Francis named Monsignor Victor Manuel Fernández, the archbishop of La Plata, Argentina, as the prefect, or chief, of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith. Fernández has been nicknamed the “pope’s theologian″ since he is widely believed to have helped author some of Francis’ most important documents. The Dicastery, or department, enforces orthodoxy of church teaching and disciplines theologians deemed to have strayed from Catholic doctrine in their lectures or publications. But it has taken on considerably more importance to rank-and-file faithful as the stain of pedophile priests spread across the globe in recent decades. Among the department’s duties are evaluating and processing sex abuse allegations against clergy.Fernández is widely b...

Hundreds of young men say goodbye to French teen killed by police

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 20:00:53 GMT

NANTERRE, France (AP) — A sea of young men walked from the mosque up the hill and into the hush of the cemetery. By the hundreds, they had come to say goodbye to the teenager whose killing by a police officer has set much of France on edge.It was a warm Saturday afternoon, far from the nights of violence in the streets that have left windows smashed and vehicles charred. Many of the men were Arab or Black and had come to mourn a boy who could have been them.France and the rest of the world know 17-year-old Nahel by his first name only, along with the barest details about his life, including that his family has roots in Algeria. But on Saturday, many in the crowd either knew him, or identified with him.After four days of chaos, there was nearly silence. Here and there, someone wore a “Justice for Nahel” shirt. As the crowd pressed through the cemetery gate, the police were nowhere to be seen. For all the significance of the day, only a few people were seen filming with mobile phones....

An anti-Trump video shared by the DeSantis campaign is ‘homophobic,’ says a conservative LGBT group

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 20:00:53 GMT

NEW YORK (AP) — A prominent group that represents LGBT conservatives says a video shared by Ron DeSantis ′ presidential campaign that slams rival Donald Trump for his past support of gay and transgender people “ventured into homophobic territory.”The “DeSantis War Room” Twitter account shared the video on Friday — the last day of June’s LGBTQ+ Pride Month — that features footage of Trump at the Republican National Convention in 2016 saying he would “do everything in my power to protect our LGBTQ citizens.” Trump had been pledging protection from terrorist attacks weeks after the shootings at the Pulse Nightclub, a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida, that was the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history at that time.The video also highlights “LGBTQ for Trump” T-shirts sold by the former president’s campaign and his past comments saying he would comfortable with Caitlyn Jenner, the former Olympic decathlete who came out as a transgender woman in 2015, using...