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Food sovereignty project continues to grow

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:10:47 GMT

By: Jan Murphy, Local Journalism InitiativeTYENDINAGA MOHAWK TERRITORY – For Andrew Brant, gardening takes him back to his childhood, to precious time he spent with his late grandfather, bonding, learning, even making more work for a man he holds in the highest regard.Brant chuckled while standing roadside at his garden along York Road in Tydendinaga Mohawk Territory as he recounted how he used to help his grandfather during potato planting season.“He was going along planting potatoes and I was following behind him pulling them out because I thought that they were the ones that needed to be pulled,” he remembered with a laugh. “I never lived that story down.”Gardening and a strong connection to the land has always been a huge part of Brant’s life, having been born and raised as a member of the Mohawks of the Bay of Quinte. So much so that last year, along with his wife, Renee, and the help of good friend Nick LaMarsh and others in the Indigenous community, Brant created a food sover...

Police search for alleged shooter who killed mother of 6 in NE Miami-Dade

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:10:47 GMT

There was a family tragedy at a South Florida park when a mother and her six children comes under fire while they were in their car. The mother ended up dying after the shots were fired.Miami-Dade Police worked well into the night Tuesday as they tried to piece together the crime. A search for the gunman who killed the mother of six is also underway. “I cannot even begin to imagine what those children felt having watched their mom get shot,” Said MDPD Officer Angel Rodriguez. “I cannot even imagine what they are feeling or going through right now.”The shooting happened at Oak Grove Park on Northeast 159th Street and Seventh Avenue.According to investigators, what started as some sort of dispute between two groups quickly turned deadly..“The dispute escalated when a firearm was produced,shots were fired, striking the adult female victim,” Rodriguez said.That mother was struck by gunfire as she tried to drive off.“As the female fled the area, ...

Police search for thief caught on surveillance video breaking into home in Fort Lauderdale

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:10:47 GMT

Fort Lauderdale Police are working to solve a smash and steal.Surveillance video caught a thief walking around the pool area of a home moments before he smashed a bedroom door and broke in.The burglary happened near Bayview Drive and Northeast 47th Street.The owners of that home came back to find the place ransacked and their precious heirlooms were gone.“The jewelry and the items they took, they’re tangible, they also invaded our space of safety,” Rosemary Bowen said. “Everyone likes to think their home is a safe place, and with someone breaking into your home, it’s difficult to feel safe again.”Dozens of pieces of jewelry were stolen and more than 65 items were taken.The family said the items were worth more than $100,000.

Poem read at President Biden’s inauguration moved to middle school section at Bob Graham Education Center Library after parent complains about content

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:10:47 GMT

There is a classroom controversy at a South Florida school. Several books and a poem that was read at President Biden’s inauguration were pulled from the elementary student section of the media center.The poem, “The Hill We Climb,” was read by Amanda Gorman.“We the successors of a country and a time where a skinny Black girl descended from slaves and raised by a single mother, can dream of becoming president, only to find herself reciting for one,” read Gorman during President Biden’s inauguration. The poem was written in the wake of the attack on the Capital in January of 2021. Now, the poem is at the center of a book battle at a Miami Lakes school.“It’s about indoctrination, [Critical Race Theory] and gender ideology,” Daily Salinas said. Salinas said that those were her concerns when she filed complaints related to five books that were in the Bob Graham Education Center Library that serves grades K-8.“I didn’t see ...

Europe wants Latin America on side against Vladimir Putin. Good luck with that

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:10:47 GMT

LONDON — In the struggle for hearts and minds against Russia, Europe has it sights on a new target. Unfortunately for them, Latin America’s not listening.An extended charm offensive by senior diplomats from major European nations and institutions has sought to win over neutrally-minded Latin American nations to their cause as part of the broader geopolitical battle with Russia and China.U.K. Foreign Secretary James Cleverly is the latest to try his hand, visiting Brazil on Wednesday for the final day of a week-long tour of Latin America which has already included high-level talks in Colombia and Chile.The trip — the first by a U.K. foreign secretary to the region in five years — is part of a wider diplomatic push, set out explicitly by Cleverly in a speech last December, to win over nations who “often describe themselves as ‘non-aligned’” and “are wary of committing themselves in any direction, just because other countries want them to.”South America has attracted particu...

Belgium suffers blowback over Qatargate, minister says

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:10:47 GMT

For the past six months, Brussels has been at the center of the biggest European Union corruption scandal for almost a quarter of a century. But the criminal investigation into the so-called Qatargate claims, which have severely damaged the EU’s reputation for integrity, has not been cost-free for the small European nation in charge of the inquiry. Belgium’s Interior Minister Annelies Verlinden told POLITICO that the investigation, which has uncovered allegations that foreign governments bribed EU lawmakers, has had consequences for the country’s diplomatic relations with the states allegedly involved. As interior minister, Verlinden is in charge of the Belgian police, whose unit for combatting corruption played a role in building the case that Qatar and Morocco allegedly bought influence in the European Parliament. The police also helped carry out the series of raids in December that delivered sensational finds, including a suitcase filled with cash. “We have no...

China’s new anti-spy law is just the beginning

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:10:47 GMT

Peter Humphrey is a former Reuters correspondent and spent 15 years as a fraud investigator in China for Western firms. He is currently an external research affiliate of Harvard University’s Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies and a mentor to families of foreigners wrongfully detained in China.It didn’t matter that I was “dean of the due diligence community” in China, I was still in jail for two years on false charges of illegal information gathering.But today? Today, I might get 20 or life. Or, I might be dead.In 2013, shortly after Xi Jinping had taken power in China, I was locked in an iron interrogation cage in a detention center every day, and was questioned by the Chinese police, the PSB. Then, one day, interrogators from the Ministry of State Security, China’s KGB, took over, and they tried to prove I was a spy.They had gone through my laptop with a fine-tooth comb. “You were gathering intelligence in Xinjiang. Look at this report,” the interrogator growled. “I didn’t write i...

Spain’s Podemos on the defensive as election reckoning looms

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:10:47 GMT

MADRID — A decade after it burst onto the scene, disrupting Spain’s two-party politics and reinvigorating the country’s left, Podemos is facing a reckoning.With local elections being held for 12 of the country’s 17 regional parliaments and in municipalities nationwide on May 28, Podemos lacks strong leadership, with its credibility undermined by a bungled legislative initiative and at loggerheads with its leftist rivals. As a result, the party goes into these elections weaker than at any time since its foundation.“These are elections that will decide whether or not Podemos will continue to represent a significant political space,” said Oriol Bartomeus, researcher at the Institute for Political Studies (ICPS-UAB) in Barcelona. “Podemos has gone into something akin to survival mode.”Founded in 2014, Podemos channeled the anger of the Indignados protest movement that had emerged three years earlier. Like its Greek counterpart, Syriza, Podemos capitalized on the disconte...

4 people taken to hospitals after crash in Lowell

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:10:47 GMT

Four people, including two children were rushed to hospitals after a crash in Lowell on Tuesday, police said. The two-car crash happened Tuesday afternoon at the intersection of West Sixth and Coburn Streets.Over the scene, SKY7-HD later captured video of one car with its passenger-side doors crushed. The same car’s windshield was also shattered. Elsewhere, debris were scattered around the intersection.Police said both drivers as well as two children in one of the cars were taken to local hospitals. One driver was later flown by air-ambulance to a Boston-area hospital.The crash remained under investigation as of Tuesday night.

Gloucester turns to new app to help with summer beach parking

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:10:47 GMT

As summer approaches, Gloucester officials are hoping to make it easier for people to hit the beaches with the help of a new app aimed at helping beachgoers find a place to park. The app, called Blinkay, can be downloaded from the Gloucester city website. It is open to out-of-towners, who just need to fill out some information about themselves and their vehicle before applying for a parking permit for Good Harbor Beach, Wingaersheek Beach or Stage Fort Park.Among services, the app will also track cars as they leave to alert drivers when a parking space opens up. The hope, officials said, is to avoid mishaps from last year when spots and spaces were oversold. “We had one day that oversold by a few hundred,” said Gloucester Mayor Greg Verga. “We were able to set up an offsite parking area with shuttle service to the beach. So it was a headache for a day or so. But it worked out.”Beyond its spot near the beginning of the summer season, this upcoming holiday weekend also ...