A mass shooting that killed seven farmworkers in the United States last week has brought renewed attention to the hardships faced by agricultural workers in the state of California, stretched thin by low wages and the high cost of living. The shooting on January 23 took place in the coastal community of Half Moon Bay, a small coastal town about 40 kilometres (25 miles) south of San Francisco in northern California. There, a 66-year-old farmworker named Chunli Zhao opened fire with a semi-automatic handgun at two mushroom farms where he had been employed: first at the California Terra Garden, then…
Author: National Tone
Former Vancouver Whitecaps striker Tosaint Ricketts has announced his retirement from professional soccer. The 35-year-old Edmonton native will stay on with the Major League Soccer team as a liaison of club and player engagement. Ricketts played for clubs in eight countries across his 14-year career, including Toronto FC, Finland’s Myllykosken Pallo and Lithuanian side FK Suduva Marijampole. He amassed 22 goals and five assists in 119 MLS appearances, including seven goals in 65 outings for the Whitecaps. He was with TFC from 2016 to ’18, scoring 13 goals in 51 appearances and helping the team to a treble in 2017…
Russia says it has captured a village on the northern outskirts of Bakhmut as it intensifies efforts to surround the front-line city in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region. The village of Blahodatne, which is about five kilometres (three miles) north of Bakhmut, was captured with the help of aerial support, the Russian defence ministry said in a statement on Tuesday. There was no immediate response from Ukraine’s government, and Al Jazeera could not independently verify the account. The announcement came three days after the head of Russia’s Wagner Group said the mercenary force had seized Blahodatne in an attack Ukraine said it…
Teams skipped by Manitoba’s Kaitlyn Lawes, Alberta’s Casey Scheidegger and Manitoba’s Meghan Walter appear set to fill the three wild-card positions at the Scotties Tournament of Hearts. With all of the provincial and territorial championships now complete, they are the top three non-qualified teams in this week’s Canadian team rankings. Lawes is ranked fourth behind defending Scotties champion Kerri Einarson of Manitoba, Ontario’s Rachel Homan and Manitoba’s Jennifer Jones, who beat Walter in the provincial final over the weekend. British Columbia champion Clancy Grandy is in fifth spot ahead of Scheidegger and Walter. Curling Canada has yet to officially announce…
After fleeing armed groups attacking her remote village, Aichata Hassan had no idea that another mighty challenge lay ahead: proving to the authorities that her 12-year-old daughter existed. Like countless other children in Niger, Nadia has no birth certificate, so when she arrived with the family in their new haven, she could not enrol in secondary school. The Sahel state is the fastest-growing country in the world in terms of population, as well as its poorest, according to the United Nations Human Development Index. Around half the population of around 25 million is aged under 15 – yet 40 percent…
Pope Francis’ trip to the DRC is the first papal visit since John Paul II travelled there in 1985.Pope Francis is visiting the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and South Sudan this week. The 86-year-old leader of the Catholic church will start his trip on Tuesday in the Congolese capital Kinshasa before heading to Juba, the capital of South Sudan, on Friday. The Vatican’s envoy to the DRC, where Catholics make up about half of the population, has said the trip will remind the world not to ignore decades-long conflicts there. An estimated 5.7 million people are internally displaced…
South Africa’s captain Dane van Niekerk said she is “absolutely broken” about being left out the T20 World Cup squad for failing to meet fitness standards. Van Niekerk’s recovery from a broken ankle has contributed to her absence for the Proteas since September 2021 but she was left out of the tri-series with India and the West Indies this month. Given another opportunity to prove her fitness, the all-rounder, who has 194 international caps for South Africa, was unable to complete a 2km run in the minimum required time.”Dane was given an extensive opportunity to meet the minimum criteria for…
The ATP have decided to take no disciplinary action against Alexander Zverev following an investigation into allegations of abuse against the German. Tennis’s governing body launched an investigation into allegations levelled by his ex-girlfriend Olga Sharypova in October 2021. Sharypova claimed in a magazine interview that Zverev was emotionally and physically abusive to her during their relationship.Zverev has consistently denied all the allegations levelled against him.The ATP said the investigation focused on alleged abuses taking place at the Masters event in Shanghai in 2019, but its scope included alleged misconduct in Monaco, New York and Geneva based on reports.”A major…
Until September, Aleksei Antropov was playing the double bass for the Russian Philharmonic orchestra in Moscow. But when President Vladimir Putin ordered Russia’s first mobilisation since World War II to boost his faltering invasion of Ukraine, the 29-year-old fled to neighbouring Georgia where he now works as a hotel receptionist. The classical musician is one of hundreds of thousands of Russians, many of them young men, who left the country to avoid the risk of being called up to fight a war that some do not agree with. The Georgian capital, Tbilisi, was a popular destination, because it can be reached…
As the Russia-Ukraine war enters its 342nd day, we take a look at the main developments.Here is the situation as it stands on Tuesday, January 31, 2023: Fighting Russian missiles have killed three people in the southern Ukrainian city of Kherson, while fighting rages in the eastern Donetsk region where Russia again shelled the key town of Vuhledar, Ukrainian officials said. Russia has moved additional forces and equipment to its western Kursk region on the border with Ukraine, according to the region’s governor. Weapons: President Emmanuel Macron has said France does not exclude sending fighter jets to Ukraine, provided such…