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Vehicle driving wrong way on highway was being pursued by police after alleged liquor store robbery, causing six-vehicle collisionTwo grandparents and their infant grandchild have been killed on a highway east of Toronto after a van being chased by police crashed while going the wrong way, causing a six-vehicle collision.The chase late on Monday was triggered by an alleged liquor store robbery, and the...

Little-known former sports minister Fritz Bélizaire appointed as 90,000 flee capital in a monthHaiti’s newly installed transitional council has chosen a little-known former sports minister as the country’s prime minister, as it presses forward in its monumental task of trying to establish a stable new government amid raging violence.Fritz Bélizaire replaces Michel Patrick Boisvert, the former minister of economy and finance who was the...

Premier asks government to reintroduce ban, ending Canada’s first large attempt to gauge effects of decriminalization British Columbia has abruptly reversed course on its landmark experiment decriminalizing the possession of certain illicit drugs, citing mounting public frustration and “disorder” in the Canadian province.Premier David Eby said on Friday that he had asked the federal government to reintroduce a ban on public drug use, formally...

Peter Smith, 64, received critical care for injuries to arm, leg and stomach after attack in shallow watersA British man is in intensive care after an “unusual” shark attack on the Caribbean island of Tobago.Peter Smith, 64, received critical care after sustaining serious injuries to his left arm, left leg and stomach on Friday morning, according to a local official. Continue reading...

Politicians decry ‘shameful’ incident on domestic flight in which Cindy Woodhouse Nepinak’s headdress was taken by airline staffCanada’s largest airline has apologized to a prominent First Nations chief after her ceremonial headdress was removed from the plane’s cabin, wrapped in a plastic bag and moved to the baggage hold.Cindy Woodhouse Nepinak, national chief of the assembly of First Nations, was flying domestically on Wednesday...

‘Transitional council’ takes oath of office after prime minister formally resigns as gang violence continues to rock capitalHaiti’s prime minister, Ariel Henry, has formally resigned and a new provisional government has been sworn in during a secret ceremony at the presidential palace, nearly two months after a criminal insurrection plunged the capital into chaos.The nine-person “transitional council” was officially established on Thursday during an...

Critics of Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa say behind remarks is lack of national recognition that slavery should be discussed in schoolsPortugal needs to “pay the costs” of slavery and other colonial-era crimes, the country’s president has said, in a rare instance of a European leader seemingly backing the need for reparations.Portugal has long grappled with calls by campaigners to address its legacy as the...

Petition filed on behalf of woman known as as Fausia, who underwent a forced pregnancy after being raped Honduras is being taken to a global human rights body for the first time over its total abortion ban, which campaigners say violates women’s fundamental rights and the country’s international commitments.The Center for Reproductive Rights and the Honduras-based Centro de Derechos de la Mujer (Center for...

Celebrity fashion designer, who recruited couriers to transport bags from her native Colombia to US on commercial flights, receives 18-month sentence A leading fashion designer whose accessories were used by celebrities from Britney Spears to the cast of the Sex and the City TV series has been sentenced to 18 months in prison after pleading guilty in Miami federal court on charges of smuggling...

Anticyclonic conditions have allowed temperatures to reach 35-45C across much of the countryMexico has been undergoing its first heatwave of the season. The heatwave started on Sunday 14 April, when Mexico City saw a new date record with a high of 32.9C, surpassing the previous record of 32C from 1998.Anticyclonic conditions over the region have been responsible for this heatwave by inhibiting cloud formation,...

Sweeping security measures designed to empower police and armed forces against organised crimeEcuadoreans will vote on Sunday in a referendum on a raft of unprecedented security measures designed to empower the police and armed forces in the fight against spiralling violence and organised crime.Voters must accept or reject 11 questions, mostly about security, in the plebiscite, which is being seen as a test of...

Caribbean historians want Richard Drax to pay reparations – but now Barbados plans to buy his land for homesThe Conservative MP under fire for his ancestors’ role in Caribbean slavery is in line for a multimillion-pound payout from the Barbados government.Despite threats to make Richard Drax pay reparations and seize his family’s plantation – described by one historian as a “killing field” of enslaved...

Critics condemn ‘reckless and cruel’ expulsions and say deportees likely to be targeted by armed gangs who control much of countryMore than 70 Haitians expelled from the United States have been flown back to Haiti on the first deportation flight since heavily armed gangs launched a bloody insurrection which has paralysed the capital and forced the prime minister from office.The flight, which landed in...

Coalition of civil society groups says Paris should return harsh reparations imposed on Caribbean state two hundred years agoFrance should repay billions of dollars to Haiti to cover a debt formerly enslaved people were forced to pay in return for recognising the island’s independence, according to a coalition of civil society groups that is launching a new push for reparations.The Caribbean island state became...

In announcement three weeks before election, José Raúl Mulino gave no details of how he would stop migrant flowPanama’s presidential frontrunner has vowed to “close” the Darién Gap, the swampy jungle straddling the border with Colombia that has become an unavoidable ordeal for many US-bound migrants – but experts criticised the idea as unworkable and potentially dangerous.Presided over by criminal groups and corrupt officials,...

Shock in Brazil after woman is arrested and charged with violating a corpse and attempted theft through fraudWhen Érika de Souza Vieira wheeled her lethargic-looking uncle into a Brazilian bank, clerks quickly sensed something was amiss.“I don’t think he’s well. He doesn’t look well at all,” remarked one distrustful employee as Vieira tried to get her elderly relative to sign off on a 17,000...

Dozens of firearms also seized after 6,600 gold bars worth C$21m and C$2.7m in cash stolen at Pearson international airportPolice investigating a brazen multimillion-dollar gold heist at Toronto’s main airport have arrested six men and seized dozens of firearms linked to the case which officers said “belongs in a Netflix series”.Six thousand six hundred gold bars, worth C$21m, and C$2.7m in cash were stolen...

Notorious for drawing large crowds, Emerson was removed by officials who were surprised to find him back in Victoria in a weekLast week, gun-wielding conservation officers stuffed a 500lb elephant seal in the back of a van, drove him along a winding highway in western Canada and left him on a remote beach “far from human habitation”.The plan was to move the young seal...

El Niño weather phenomenon depletes reservoirs and limits output at hydroelectric plantsEcuador has begun to ration electricity in the country’s main cities as a drought linked to the El Niño weather pattern depletes reservoirs and limits output at hydroelectric plants that produce about 75% of the nation’s power.“We urge Ecuadorians to cut their electricity consumption in this critical week,” the ministry of energy said...

Correspondents in Port-au-Prince face danger as they play a vital role in chronicling city’s state of siegeEach day, Makenson Rémy wakes in the hush of the night to tell the story of his shattered home town, Port-au-Prince. Each day, he fears he might die. “I am very worried for the city. I am worried for my family. I am worried for myself too, because...

Patrice Runner, 57, of Canada was convicted in June of multiple counts of defrauding ‘millions of older and vulnerable Americans’A Canadian conman, who swindled more than US$175m (C$241m) from his North American victims through “a massive psychic mass-mailing fraud scheme” has been sentenced to 10 years in prison.Patrice Runner, 57, who holds citizenship with both Canada and France, was convicted by a jury in...

Nearly half a million hectares of Crown land on Haida Gwaii will be returned to Indigenous people in first-of-its-kind agreementFor centuries, the Haida people have known that the impenetrable forests and bountiful waters of Xhaaidlagha Gwaayaai – “the islands at the boundary of the world” – were both a life-giving force and their rightful home.Now, after decades of negotiation, the province of British Columbia...

Manuel Rocha, 73, will also pay a $500,000 fine after pleading guilty to conspiring to act as an agent of a foreign governmentA former career US diplomat was sentenced Friday to 15 years in federal prison after admitting he worked for decades as a secret agent for Cuba, in a plea agreement that leaves many unanswered questions about a betrayal that stunned the US...

Prime minister testified at inquiry into foreign interference that agency’s report of China meddling wasn’t relayed to himCanada’s spy agency is under pressure after Justin Trudeau and his closest advisers say they were never made aware of a report that Beijing “clandestinely and deceptively” interfered in both the 2019 and 2021 federal elections.Canada is in the midst of a contentious public inquiry “examining and...