At least 40 people – most believed to be female students – have been killed after multiple blasts targeted a school in west Kabul, according to Afghan government officials.
At least 50 are also reported to have been injured by the blast, which happened in the Shia-majority neighbourhood of Dasht-e-Barchi.
Former Olympic weightlifter Tracey Lambrechs says females are being told to “be quiet” when they complain about the fairness of transgender New Zealand athlete Laurel Hubbard competing in women’s competitions.
Hubbard is on track to become the first transgender athlete to compete at an Olympics after the International Weightlifting Federation (IWF) modified qualifying requirements for the Tokyo Games on Wednesday.
The 43-year-old still has to satisfy the New Zealand Olympic Committee (NZOC) of her fitness and performance standards before selection for the team but the prospect she will compete in Tokyo has already raised hackles.
At least 163 Palestinians and six Israeli police officers have been hurt in clashes in Jerusalem, Palestinian medics and Israeli police say.
Most were injured at the Al-Aqsa Mosque, where Israeli police fired rubber bullets and stun grenades as Palestinians threw stones and bottles.
Tensions have been rising over the potential eviction of Palestinians from land claimed by Jewish settlers.
The Red Crescent has opened a field hospital to treat the wounded.
The Al-Aqsa mosque complex in Jerusalem’s Old City is one of Islam’s most revered locations, but its location is also the holiest site in Judaism, known as the Temple Mount.
Ontario is reporting 2,864 cases of #COVID19 and over 47,800 tests completed. Locally, there are 803 new cases in Peel, 684 in Toronto, 285 in York Region, 133 in Hamilton and 125 in Durham.
— Christine Elliott (@celliottability) May 8, 2021
Pandemic errors made Canadian COVID-19 outbreak far worse than it needed to be, committee told
Poor intelligence gathering on COVID-19, faulty risk assessments on the spread of the virus, and a Public Health Agency that lacked enough scientific expertise all helped make the pandemic worse in Canada than it should have been, a parliamentary committee heard Friday.
During several hours of testimony that was critical of the federal government’s response to the outbreak, experts in national security, public health and medicine said many of the problems with Canada’s pandemic response were avoidable. And those lessons can’t be ignored as the government tries to distil the lessons from COVID-19 in hopes of preparing the country for a future health threat.
Wesley Wark, an adjunct professor at the University of Ottawa who is an expert in intelligence gathering and security, said the government failed to conduct proper risk assessments of the virus, and did not heed early evidence in 2020 that the pandemic was a serious threat.
(Go incognito)
Ontario government must ‘immediately’ reopen outdoor spaces: Canadian Paediatric Society
The Canadian Paediatric Society is calling on the Ontario provincial government to “immediately” reopen outdoor recreation spaces, saying the closure is having “devastating effects” on children and youth amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
In an open letter posted to Twitter on Friday, the society said it “cannot overstate the extent of the mental health crisis facing our children and youth.”
The numbers are particularly troubling for Mr. O’Toole’s new leadership of the Conservative Party. His main strategic thrusts, to move the party to more moderate centre terrain, to admonish the Liberals for a disastrous vaccine procurement performance and to pursue the working class and union vote, have all been singularly ineffective to date.
Video showed a large group of leftist militants marching down a Portland street Wednesday reportedly to remember Patrick Kimmons, a black man fatally shot by Portland police in 2018.
Why are armed gangs allowed to stop traffic?
Included in the report is a “stringency index” which evaluates the overall strictness of lockdowns and public health orders. The index takes into account over a dozen variables including mask policy, gathering limits, restaurant closures and much more.
According to the NFL: “Hill will be responsible for leading the NFL’s day-to-day communications operation, aligning the League’s communications strategy with its priorities. She will work closely with the leadership team across departments to ensure consistency of messaging and strategy, and to elevate success stories.” stated the press release, “In addition, she will lead efforts in identifying reputational issues for the League and across the 32 clubs and developing strategies to mitigate their impact.”
A well-respected science writer has published a thoughtful and convincing piece this week that helps confirm what most people with common sense have long believed: COVID-19 wasn’t just randomly discovered in a Chinese wet market; it escaped from a human lab.
It’s said to be the most Asian city outside Asia. Where a quarter of residents speak a Chinese language and the char siu rivals what’s served in Hong Kong barbecue shops. Where a Sikh gurdwara, a Tibetan monastery, and a Chinese evangelical church coexist in harmony along a 3-kilometer stretch of road dubbed the Highway to Heaven. The kind of place that should be immune to a rise in pandemic-fueled racism.
A California state assembly committee gave its stamp of approval on April 27 to legislation that would significantly soften sentences for people convicted of some firearm offenses, with proponents saying laws against using guns in the commission of crimes disproportionately affect people of color.
For the past week, Canadian Heritage Minister Steven Guilbeault has promised to address widespread concern over Bill C-10, the Broadcasting Act reform bill. After the issue emerged as an increasingly prominent part of House of Commons debate, Guilbeault stated;
we also want to make sure that the content that people upload on social media won’t be considered as programming under the act and that it won’t be regulated by the CRTC. And that’s why we will be bringing forward another amendment that will make this crystal clear.
The Trudeau Government failed to consider any violent left-wing protest groups associated with urban riots and bombings when compiling its annual list of banned terrorist groups, True North has learned.
According to a new document exclusively obtained by True North, the Department of Public Safety did not provide any records to the Minister on a long list of Antifa-affiliated groups who operate in Canada.
Canadians shouldn’t even know the name of the Line 5 pipeline.
It should be completely inconsequential to our fortunes.
It shouldn’t matter at all.
After all, we’re a country that is absolutely swimming in oil, with some of the largest reserves on the planet.
If you are reluctant to get the COVID vaccine and beginning to feel overrun by forces pressuring you to get vaccinated, you aren’t alone and you aren’t crazy. There’s a reason you feel the way you do. You are being manipulated.
We are being bombarded with commercials pushing us to be socially responsible. Medical professionals, celebrities, and folks in our communities admonish us not to shirk our civic duty. Suddenly, the vaccine is the only way to normalcy.
Michelle Obama, who has lived a privileged life by any standard, really wants us to believe she is “regular folks.” An even greater need for her is that people see her as an oppressed black victim of systemic racism. Despite the fact that she was in the White House for 8 years, she wants people to think that at any moment a racist white police officer could kill her and her daughters.
How wicked are the culprits of this COVID enterprise, that they violate our rights and destroy our society, while pushing dangerous experimental injections on us, and obstructing safe, affordable, and effective treatments like Ivermectin?
