HellsBelle

The Metals Company (TMC) will instead seek permission from the U.S. to start deep-sea mining in the Pacific Ocean, rather than from the UN-affiliated International Seabed Authority (ISA).

Co-founder and CEO Gerard Barron says he believes U.S. could help start mining "much sooner than we would have been under the ISA pathway."

The move has alarmed observers and the ISA. The agency, since forming in 1994, and its nearly 170 member nations have been working to set regulations for mining in international waters but has yet to finalize any. It has issued exploration permits, but none for commercial mining.

Some Manitoba landlords say they'll have no choice but to raise rents, after the provincial government promised tax relief for at least some rental property owners under its overhaul of the education property tax system but failed to deliver.

This is the first year in which the NDP government is providing homeowners with a credit, valued at up to $1,500, on their school taxes.

Under the former Progressive Conservative government, the province instead offered a 50 per cent rebate on school taxes, but all residential property owners were eligible — not just homeowners.

The bill sidestepped the usual lawmaking process by tacking a new proposal onto a bill without sending it to a regular committee, where lawmakers and members of the public could weigh in. Democrats in the House Rules Committee raised alarms about the last-minute effort without a clear motive.

Skeptics say the hurried process was especially concerning for a bill that could shield information about lawmakers’ work from those who elect them and further restrict what police departments have to share with the public after they respond to a call about a crime.

Elberton Republican Rep. Rob Leverett said at the committee meeting the bill would simply “clean up” language related to public records issues that have come up in court. He called other added protections for legislators a “reasonable extension of existing law.”

A health-care executive has slapped Last Week Tonight host John Oliver with a lawsuit, alleging the comedian-turned-talk-show-host defamed him in a 2024 episode by twisting his words and making “false accusations.”

The episode in question, which aired in April of last year, linked Dr. Brian Morley, a hospital administrator and former medical director for AmeriHealth Caritas in Iowa, to a drastic decrease in Medicaid services and accused him of thinking “it’s OK if people have s–t on them for days.”

The complaint, filed late last week in the New York Southern District Court, claims that Oliver and his team “entirely snipped out of context and manipulated two sentences of Morley’s testimony” during an administrative proceeding so that they could “accomplish their defamation,” reports Entertainment Weekly.

(For those interested here is the episode. Dr. Morley speaks at 21:22.)

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=bVIsnOfNfCo

IN AN UNUSUALLY combative approach, Shopify executives started to openly reject aspects of the Liberal agenda late last year. Chief Operating Officer Kaz Nejatian, President Harley Finkelstein, and then vice president Daniel Debow all took to X with a barrage of posts criticizing federal spending, regulatory overreach, and what was depicted as Canada’s waning global competitiveness. “Canada’s entrepreneurs,” wrote Nejatian, “deserve better than what they are getting from their government.”

Taken together, the furious tagging, quoting, and reposting captured a frustrated tech class convinced that innovation and ambition were being stifled by bureaucracy. The tone was hostile, sometimes dismissive (“My god. Canada what are we doing,” Finkelstein shot back at then prime minister Justin Trudeau, who had announced new regulations on short-term rentals). But the men weren’t just venting. They called for Canada’s start-up culture to step up, urging entrepreneurs to build a new national vision from the ground up. The mood foreshadowed a post–US election moment that elevated private sector success over government expertise.

Asian markets have posted further losses after opening on Friday, hours after US markets closed the day with some of their worst losses in five years, with tech stocks particularly hard hit.

Tokyo’s Nikkei index was down 1.8% at 34,108.23, adding to a drop of 2.77% on Thursday. The broader Topix index was off 2.3%, having lost 3.08% the previous day.

Chip-related shares were some of the worst performers on Friday, with Advantest and Tokyo Electron down 7% and 4%, respectively.

Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 index fell as much as 2% on Friday, to an eight-month low.

A massive, 1,700-person work camp paid for by B.C. taxpayers could be headed to the local landfill by the end of the year, a new report warns.

Opened in 2016, and costing $470 million for construction and eight years of operation, the camp includes a movie theatre, gymnasium, fitness centre, cafeteria and 21 three-story dorms, each with about 80 rooms consisting of a bed and bathroom. Google reviews from people who've stayed there note a coffee shop and games room, outdoor fire pit and beer on tap at the bar.

The report said that in total, the camp buildings make up 665,443 square feet along with "concrete slabs, asphalt and steel piles" associated with demolition work scheduled for later this year.

It was the middle of the night when Zarin Gul realised that her daughter Nasrin had to get to the hospital as soon as possible. Her daughter’s husband was away working in Iran and the two women were alone with Nasrin’s seven children when Nasrin, heavily pregnant with her eighth child, began experiencing severe pains.

“I begged them, telling them my daughter was dying. I pleaded for their permission,” says Gul. “But they still refused. In desperation, I lied and said the rickshaw driver was my nephew and our guardian. Only then did they let us pass.”

By the time they reached the hospital it was too late. Nasrin’s baby had already died in her womb, and her uterus had ruptured. The doctors said Nasrin needed to be transferred to another hospital and so Gul helped her daughter into another rickshaw and they set off again, towards a government hospital an hour away. On their way they were stopped at two more Taliban checkpoints, each time detained for long periods because they were travelling alone.

They did finally reach the hospital, but Nasrin had not survived the journey. “The doctors told us that due to excessive bleeding and the ruptured uterus, both the baby and the mother had died,” says Gul. “We buried them side by side.”

Germany has recently taken a chilling new step, signalling its willingness to use political views as grounds to curb migration. Authorities are now moving to deport foreign nationals for participating in pro-Palestine actions. As I reported this week in the Intercept, four people in Berlin – three EU citizens and one US citizen – are set to be deported over their involvement in demonstrations against Israel’s war on Gaza. None of the four have been convicted of a crime, and yet the authorities are seeking to simply throw them out of the country.

The accusations against them include aggravated breach of the peace and obstruction of a police arrest. Reports from last year suggest that one of the actions they were alleged to have been involved in included breaking into a university building and threatening people with objects that could have been used as potential weapons.

But the deportation orders go further. They cite a broader list of alleged behaviours: chanting slogans such as “Free Gaza” and “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free”, joining road blockades (a tactic frequently used by climate activists), and calling a police officer a “fascist”. Read closely, the real charge appears to be something more basic: protest itself.

The data relates, at least in part, to shipments mislabelled as coming from remote Norfolk Island, or Heard Island and McDonald Islands, instead of their correct countries of origin, the Guardian can reveal.

According to an analysis of US import data and shipping records, multiple shipments of goods were classified as having originated from Norfolk Island or Heard and McDonald islands when neither the company address, nor the port of departure for the shipment, nor the destination port were located in those territories.

In some cases involving Norfolk Island, which is 1,600km north-east of Sydney and has a population of 2,188, the confusion appears to have resulted from the fact that the company’s address or port of departure is Norfolk, UK, or the destination is Norfolk, Virginia in the US, or a company’s registered address in New Hampshire (NH) has been listed instead as Norfolk Island (NI).

The firings encompassed four staffers who were fired overnight, after the meeting, and two who were removed over the weekend. It created the extraordinary situation where Loomer appeared to have more influence than the national security adviser, Mike Waltz, over the NSC and undercut Waltz in having aides axed under him.

Loomer brought a booklet of papers laying out the perceived disloyalty of about a dozen staffers, including Waltz’s principal deputy, Alex Wong, to the meeting, which was also attended by JD Vance, the chief of staff Susie Wiles, the commerce secretary Howard Lutnick and Waltz himself.

The fired officials included Brian Walsh, the senior director for intelligence who previously worked for now secretary of state Marco Rubio on the Senate intelligence committee; Thomas Boodry, the senior director for legislative affairs who previously served as Waltz’s legislative director in Congress; and Maggie Dougherty, the senior director for international organizations, the people said.

Wayne sits in a reclining chair where he spends most of his days. Terminally ill, he is too weak to leave the house.

He has invited BBC News to witness his death under California's assisted dying laws - if MPs in London vote to legalise the practice in England and Wales, it will allow some terminally ill people here to die in a similar way.

Half an hour after arriving at Wayne's house, I watch him swallow three anti-nausea tablets, designed to minimise the risk of him vomiting the lethal medication he plans to take shortly.

When Wayne signals he is ready, the doctor mixes the meds with cherry and pineapple juice to soften the bitter taste - and he hands this pink liquid to Wayne.