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Chicago Bears Q&A: Ryan Poles backed Matt Eberflus, but what’s the status of the coach? How will the O-line look when Nate Davis returns?

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 11:15:53 GMT

The Chicago Bears had some extra time this week between Thursday’s 16-13 victory over the Carolina Panthers and Sunday when they face the NFC North-leading Lions in Detroit.Heading into Week 11, there are still many questions surrounding the coach, the culture and the contracts. Brad Biggs answers your Chicago Bears questions, which have been lightly edited, each week.After hearing Ryan Poles talk about Matt Eberflus in his last news conference, what are the honest chances he actually gets fired come the end of the season if they win a couple more games? I think the team overall is playing hard and the run defense is playing eons better than last year — a key responsibility of his. But the pass defense is still bad for many reasons. Clearly they love his culture at Halas Hall given how much they use the word. I think it’s also important to not forget this is an organization that kept John Fox for a third year after a 6-10 and 3-13 seasons. — Gerry M., Chicago...

Community centres, arenas reopening in Oakville as town, workers union ratify deal

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 11:15:53 GMT

Community centres and arenas are reopening in Oakville on Monday after a tentative deal between the town and the union representing workers was ratified over the weekend.CUPE Local 136, the union representing 285 workers and facility operators, reached an agreement with the Town of Oakville on Friday, ending a more than week long walkout. A ratification vote was held on Saturday by the union and town council.In a notice on its website, the town says all services are resuming, including programs, rentals and loose leaf collection.“Recreation and Culture customers will receive a direct email communication with details on when drop-in program online registration will be available,” reads a notice on the town website. “In addition, loose leaf collection would resume on residential roads on Monday and leash free dog parks would open around noon on Sunday.”More details of the deal are expected to be made public now that it has been ratified. The workers walked off ...

Olympic sports bodies want talks with IOC on threats from adding cricket and others to 2028 program

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 11:15:53 GMT

GENEVA (AP) — Olympic sports bodies want urgent talks with the IOC about the risk of cuts in their revenue shares and medal events at the 2028 Los Angeles Games because cricket and other newcomers were added to the program.The International Olympic Committee last month approved cricket, baseball/softball, flag football, lacrosse and squash for 2028 and kept boxing, modern pentathlon and weightlifting — three sports whose status had been in doubt.The umbrella group of current Summer Games sports, known by the acronym ASOIF, said Monday the decision to increase to a record 36 sports “has raised several questions” among its members, who collectively shared $540 million of IOC-allocated money at each of the past two Olympics.Most Olympic sports got between $13 million and $17.3 million from the pandemic-delayed Tokyo Games in 2021. For some, that was about half their total income over four years.Adding four team sports in 2028 also is set to break the IOC’s preferred limit of 10,500 ath...

Toronto police looking for injured person after ‘significant amount of blood’ found near reported stabbing

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 11:15:53 GMT

Toronto police are looking for a young man who they believe was stabbed in the city’s east end, adding they are concerned about the potential severity of his injuries.Police were called to a home near Pape Avenue and Gerrard Street East around 11 p.m. Sunday for reports of a stabbing.Officers arrived and found a “significant amount of blood,” but say any victims and suspects had already left the area.Investigators say the blood at the scene indicated someone suffered a serious injury. They are hoping to find the hurt person and say they are concerned for their health.The injured person is described as a 18 to 25-year-old Black male with a light complexion, five feet nine inches tall with a medium build. He was last seen wearing a mask that covered his head and neck, and a black jacket and black pants.Police believe he has an injury to his right hand, along with other possible injuries.Anyone with information about the incident is being asked to contact investigators.

Vatican monastery that served as Pope Benedict XVI’s retirement home gets new tenants

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 11:15:53 GMT

ROME (AP) — The converted monastery in the Vatican gardens that served as Pope Benedict XVI’s retirement home will once again house a small community of nuns.Pope Francis signed a note Oct. 1 ordering the Mater Ecclesiae monastery to resume its original purpose as a home within the Vatican walls for communities of contemplative nuns, the Vatican said Monday. St. John Paul II had created the monastery for that purpose in 1994.Francis invited a community of Benedictine nuns from his native Buenos Aires to take up residence starting in January, the Vatican said in a statement. The aim is for the six sisters of the Benedictine Order of the Abbey of St. Scholastica of Victoria to support the pope’s ministry through their prayers, “thus being a prayerful presence in silence and solitude,” it said.When Benedict decided in 2012 he would retire in early February 2013, he had the recently vacated monastery renovated in secret so it would be ready for him and his papal family to move into. Ben...

Myanmar army faces a new threat from armed ethnic foes who open a new front in a western state

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 11:15:53 GMT

BANGKOK (AP) — Myanmar’s military government, under pressure in the country’s northeast where it recently lost strategic territory to an alliance of armed ethnic groups, faced a fresh challenge Monday when one of the groups launched attacks in the western state of Rakhine.The Arakan Army launched surprise assaults on two outposts of the Border Guard Police, a para-military force, in Rakhine’s Rathedaung township, according to independent online media and residents of the area. The attacks took place despite a yearlong cease-fire with Myanmar’s military government.The Arakan Army is the well-trained and well-armed military wing of the Rakhine ethnic minority movement seeking autonomy from the central government. Rakhine is also known by its older name of Arakan. It’s the site of a brutal army counterinsurgency operation in 2017 that drove about 740,000 minority Rohingya Muslims to seek safety across the border in Bangladesh.Fighting was also reported between the rebels and the ...

Indonesian Election Commission approves all three candidates for president

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 11:15:53 GMT

JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) — Indonesia’s Election Commission announced Monday that it has approved all three presidential candidates for next February’s election, including a former special forces general whose vice-presidential running mate is the son of outgoing President Joko Widodo.The commission said all of the candidates had passed the legal requirements. Last month, the Constitutional Court in a controversial 5-4 ruling allowed Widodo’s son, 36-year-old Gibran Rakabuming Raka, to run despite not meeting the minimum age requirement of 40 for presidential and vice-presidential candidates.The court, headed by Widodo’s brother-in-law, said it granted an exception for Raka because he is currently mayor of Surakarta. Pro-democracy activists criticized the decision as nepotism that undermined the democratic process. The chief justice was later dismissed after the court’s ethics council found him guilty of a serious violation.Raka is the running mate of president...

European Union calls for an investigation into the massacre of nearly 100 civilians in Burkina Faso

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 11:15:53 GMT

DAKAR, Senegal (AP) — The European Union is calling for an investigation into the massacre of nearly 100 civilians including women and children in Burkina Faso.The killings took place in the village of Zaongo in the Center-North region earlier this month, the EU said in a statement Sunday.“The European Union calls on the transitional authorities to shed light on the circumstances of this killing in order to determine responsibility,” it said.It’s unclear who perpetrated the attacks, Burkina Faso’s government didn’t respond to a request for comment.The West African nation has been grappling with a jihadi insurgency linked to al-Qaida and the Islamic State group for years. Thousands of people have been killed and more than 2 million internally displaced.The violence has led to two coups, with the current junta seizing power in September 2022. The junta, led by Capt. Ibrahim Traore, has been accused by rights groups of committing abuses against civilians and cracking ...

Spain’s Parliament to vote on Prime Minister Sánchez’s reelection. Catalan amnesty deal causes furor

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 11:15:53 GMT

MADRID (AP) — The investiture debate and vote to reelect acting Socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez will take place later this week, Spain’s Parliament speaker said Monday.Speaker Francina Armengol said Sanchez’s candidacy will be discussed by party leaders Wednesday and the vote will take place after the debate Thursday.Sánchez, who has been in office since 2018, is expected to be voted in with no problems given that his Socialist party has reached deals with a bunch of small parties to ensure he has the backing of 179 legislators, three more than the 176 majority required in Parliament in a first vote. Spain’s July 23 inconclusive elections left all parties without a clear path to form government. The right-of-center Popular Party, under Alberto Núñez Feijóo, won the most seats in the election with 137. But because of its close ties with the extreme right Vox party, almost no other party backed Feijóo’s investiture bid in September.Sánchez’s Socialists w...

Japanese vice minister resigns over tax scandal in another setback for Kishida’s unpopular Cabinet

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 11:15:53 GMT

TOKYO (AP) — A Japanese vice finance minister stepped down on Monday, amid criticism from Prime Minister Fumio Kishida’s Cabinet, after admitting his company’s repeated failures to pay taxes, a further setback to Kishida’s unpopular government. Deputy Finance Minister Kenji Kanda, in charge of government bonds and monetary policy, is the third member of Kishida’s Cabinet to resign within two months following a Cabinet shuffle in September. Kishida later told reporters that he takes responsibility for the appointment of Kanda. “I must apologize to the people that a vice finance minister had to resign soon after he assumed his position,” Kishida said. “I’m determined to concentrate on our work more seriously, as I believe that’s the only way to regain the people’s trust.”Kanda, a tax accountant-turned-lawmaker, admitted that land and property belonging to his company was seized by the authorities four times between 2013 and 2022 after fa...