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Want people to tune in to an opioid film? Make it funny, says director David Yates

Published Sun, 23 Feb 2025 11:05:26 GMT

TORONTO — How do you get people to pay attention to the opioid epidemic? For English director David Yates and Canadian producer Lawrence Grey, the answer was simple: make it funny.  In an effort to draw “as broad an audience as possible,” per Yates, they created “Pain Hustlers,” a highly stylized Netflix film in the vein of “The Big Short” that takes aim at big pharma instead of big banks. “When you see opioid on the tin, you might go: ‘Oh, it’s a drama about the opioid crisis,'” Yates said last month at the Toronto International Film Festival, where the movie premiered.“But if you cast two big movie stars, or three or four movie stars, and then you watch a trailer that looks kind of fun, then there’s a good chance that you will tune in and give it some time.” Those Hollywood celebrities — a bottle blond Emily Blunt and a goateed Chris Evans — portray pharmaceutical sales executives who conspire to bribe d...

Many Israelis are furious at their government’s chaotic recovery efforts after Hamas attack

Published Sun, 23 Feb 2025 11:05:26 GMT

JERUSALEM (AP) — More than two weeks after Hamas militants rampaged through a string of sleepy farming towns, many Israelis are furious at Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government, not just for failing to prevent the attack, but for failing to come to their aid afterward.While the military is launching unrelenting airstrikes in Gaza that have killed thousands of Palestinians, and hundreds of thousands of Israeli troops are massing for a possible ground offensive, government infighting and lack of help for those in need have left traumatized survivors to mourn on their own and volunteers — many of whom spent the past year protesting the government — to take on recovery efforts.“It has to be clear. The government is completely incompetent,” said Ruvi Dar, a clinical psychologist and Tel Aviv University professor who has been counseling survivors evacuated from their homes. “Any support that the refugees are getting right now is completely grassroots. Absolutely nothing by the st...

Global Affairs says 7th Canadian killed in Israel-Hamas hostilities

Published Sun, 23 Feb 2025 11:05:26 GMT

Global Affairs Canada says it is providing support to the family of a seventh Canadian killed during ongoing hostilities between Israel and Hamas.More to come

Nineteen-year-old acquaintance charged with murder in the death of a Philadelphia journalist

Published Sun, 23 Feb 2025 11:05:26 GMT

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — An acquaintance has been charged in the death of a Philadelphia journalist who went from sleeping on the street to working for the mayor to writing urgent columns on the city’s most pressing social issues.Robert Edmond Davis, 19, faces murder, weapons counts and related charges in the death of Josh Kruger, 39, who was shot and killed at his Philadelphia home Oct. 2. A warrant had been issued for Davis four days later and authorities have said they have video of him in the area of Kruger’s home before the shooting.Davis was arrested at his South Philadelphia home Wednesday night. Authorities have said the motive behind the killing remains unclear but that the pair were in a relationship.It was not clear Thursday if Davis has retained an attorney. His mother, Damica Davis, told The Philadelphia Inquirer that if her son did kill Kruger, there’s no excuse, noting “it’s tragic what happened, but I feel like my son is a victim in this, as well.”Kruger was shot se...

Turkey’s central bank opts for another interest rate hike in efforts to curb inflation

Published Sun, 23 Feb 2025 11:05:26 GMT

ANKARA, Turkey (AP) — Turkey’s central bank hiked interest rates again on Thursday, pressing ahead with more conventional economic policies recently embraced by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to fight inflation.The bank raised its policy rate by 5 percentage points to 35% after inflation hit 61.53% last month. It was the bank’s fifth rate hike in as many months.The bank said its monetary policy committee “decided to continue the monetary tightening process in order to establish the disinflation course as soon as possible.”It also announced more such moves “in a timely and gradual manner until a significant improvement in inflation outlook is achieved.”Erdogan had long pressured the central bank into cutting interest rates, arguing that low borrowing costs help fight inflation. That thinking, however, runs contrary to traditional economic theory. Many central banks around the world hiked interest rates to bring consumer prices under control.Many blamed Erdogan’s unorthodox poli...

S&P/TSX composite down as tech stocks fall, U.S. stock markets also lower

Published Sun, 23 Feb 2025 11:05:26 GMT

TORONTO — Weakness in technology stocks helped lead Canada’s main stock index lower in late-morning trading, while U.S. stock markets also moved lower.The S&P/TSX composite index was down 27.54 points at 18,920.31.In New York, the Dow Jones industrial average was down 114.57 points at 32,921.36. The S&P 500 index was down 29.50 points at 4,157.27, while the Nasdaq composite was down 150.07 points at 12,671.15.The Canadian dollar traded for 72.34 cents US compared with 72.56 cents US on Wednesday.The December crude oil contract was down US$1.61 at US$83.78 per barrel and the December natural gas contract was up three cents at US$3.41 per mmBTU.The December gold contract was down US$5.80 at US$1,989.10 an ounce and the December copper contract was up a penny at US$3.60 a pound.This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 26, 2023.Companies in this story: (TSX:GSPTSE, TSX:CADUSD) The Canadian Press

Home sales, prices will likely fall in short term but pick up next spring: TD report

Published Sun, 23 Feb 2025 11:05:26 GMT

TORONTO — A new report by TD Economics predicts Canadian home sales and average prices will fall over the coming months but pick up by the second quarter next year. Economist Rishi Sondhi says the impact of higher interest rates continues to be felt, which will likely push sales and prices lower by 10 and five per cent, respectively, by the end of the first quarter of next year, compared with 2023 third-quarter levels.The subsequent recovery forecasted is based on an assumption the Bank of Canada will cut its key interest rate by next spring as unemployment rises and the core inflation rate inches lower toward the central bank’s two per cent target.On Wednesday, the Bank of Canada held its key interest rate steady at five per cent but did not rule out future rate hikes amid projections that show inflation remaining higher in the short term.Sondhi says that would risk adding pressure on overstretched homeowners renewing their mortgages and push supply higher than expected.The T...

Strikers have shut down a vital Great Lakes shipping artery for days, and negotiations are looming

Published Sun, 23 Feb 2025 11:05:26 GMT

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — A strike has shut down all shipping on the St. Lawrence Seaway, interrupting exports of grain and other goods from Canada and the United States via the Great Lakes to the rest of the world.Around 360 workers in Ontario and Quebec with Unifor, Canada’s largest private-sector union, walked out early Sunday in a dispute over wages with the St. Lawrence Seaway Management Corp. The strike has shut down 13 locks between Lake Erie and Montreal, bottling up ships in the Great Lakes and preventing more ships from coming in.The St. Lawrence Seaway and Great Lakes are part of a system of locks, canals, rivers and lakes that stretches more than 2,300 miles (3,700 kilometers) from the Atlantic Ocean to the western tip of Lake Superior in Minnesota and Wisconsin. It carried over $12 billion U.S. dollars (nearly $17 billion Canadian) worth of cargo last year. Ships that travel it include oceangoing “salties” and “lakers” that stick to the lakes.It’s the first time that a strike ...

Judge says he’ll look at Donald Trump’s comments, reconsider $10,000 fine for gag order violation

Published Sun, 23 Feb 2025 11:05:26 GMT

NEW YORK (AP) — A New York judge said Thursday he would take a fuller look at Donald Trump’s out-of-court comments and reconsider a $10,000 fine he imposed on the former president a day earlier at his civil fraud trial.The development came after Trump’s lawyers urged Judge Arthur Engoron to rethink the penalty. The judge fined Trump on Wednesday after finding that his comments to TV cameras outside the courtroom violated a gag order that bars participants in the trial from commenting publicly on the judge’s staff.Outside court Wednesday, the Republican presidential front-runner complained that Engoron, a Democrat, is “a very partisan judge with a person who’s very partisan sitting alongside of him, perhaps even much more partisan than he is.” The comment came weeks after Engoron imposed the gag order in the wake of a Trump social media post that disparaged the judge’s principal law clerk. She sits next to Engoron, and Trump’s lawyers had groused a bit earlier about the clerk’s facia...

Half of Canadian restaurants only breaking even or losing money: report

Published Sun, 23 Feb 2025 11:05:26 GMT

Despite COVID-19 restrictions being lifted more than 18 months ago, the Canadian restaurant industry is still struggling to recoup losses and things appear to be as grim as ever.A new report from Restaurants Canada finds half of all eateries are currently operating at a loss or are just breaking even. It blames things like the high cost of food, insurance, rent and labour, pandemic-related debt, and ongoing labour shortages.Matthew Senecal Junkeer owns two restaurants in Vancouver, one in Gastown, and the other in Chinatown. He says his sales are up, but his bottom line is down.“To give you a sense, our margins pre-pandemic were about eight to nine per cent and our margins are about one to two per cent, which is better than half of our colleagues in this sector,” he told CityNews.Despite COVID-19 restrictions being lifted more than 18 months ago, the Canadian restaurant industry is still struggling to recoup losses and things appear to be as grim as ever. (Courtesy Resta...