Category Archives: Americas

Canada police investigate whether Toronto police death linked to global terror attacks

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Constable Marc Pinizzotto, 43, was killed while executing search warrants related to a shooting at US consulate

Authorities in Canada are investigating whether the killing of a Toronto police officer while he was executing search warrants related to a shooting at the city’s US consulate is linked a broader series of global terror attacks.

Constable Marc Pinizzotto, 43, a member of the emergency taskforce, was killed on Thursday during a dawn search of an apartment building in the west of the city.

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An ideological tug-of-war: the pressures facing Iran’s World Cup squad in US

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Flag bans, travel headaches and a religious regime video among bumps in road, as team prepares to be first to play in country with which it is at war

Iran will present a major challenge to Fifa’s “football unites the world” slogan on Monday by becoming the first country in World Cup history to compete on the soil of a host nation with which it is at war.

The national team’s opening match against New Zealand in Los Angeles will kick off amid continuing hostilities between Iran and the US that have intensified in recent days, as a fragile ceasefire has failed to hold and attempts at reaching a negotiated settlement have sputtered.

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Toronto police officer shot while investigating US consulate attack

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Suspect, 19, still at large after officer dies in hospital having been shot while searching an apartment

A Toronto police officer has been shot dead as police raided an apartment allegedly linked to the March attack on the US consulate, the city’s police chief, Myron Demkiw, said.

Demkiw said 43-year-old constable Marc Pinizzotto was shot while conducting an early-morning search warrant in the north-west of the city and later died at a hospital.

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Cuba hopes for World Cup respite from US sabre-rattling – but prepares for the worst

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With some matches being held in nearby Miami, a Cuban response to US military action could mar the tournament

As Cuba crumbles under a nearly five-month-long US oil blockade, many on the island hope that the World Cup might save the island from US attack – or at least offer a respite until the competition ends on 19 July.

“The beginning of the World Cup will make it more difficult for the United States to carry out a military action in Cuba,” said Carlos Alzugaray, Cuba’s former ambassador to the EU. “Cuba is very close to the US, and can hit many targets inside the US, especially in south Florida, with drones or other weapons.”

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Brazilian woman, 38, accused of years of ‘elaborate fraud’ by posing as a child

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Amanda Maria Souza de Oliveira faces fraud charges after allegedly persuading family to take her into their home

A 38-year-old woman has been arrested in Brazil accused of pretending to be a 12-year-old girl to deceive a couple who took her into their home for more than a year.

Amanda Maria Souza de Oliveira was charged in the southern state of Santa Catarina with fraud and false identity offences.

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Hegseth warns Cuba against acquiring weapons in visit to Guantánamo Bay

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US defense secretary continues ramp-up of pressure against country including sanctions and devastating oil blockade

Pete Hegseth has warned Cuba against acquiring weapons that could threaten the United States, during a visit to the US military base at Guantánamo Bay.

Washington has ramped up pressure against Cuba with sanctions and a devastating oil blockade, and Donald Trump has repeatedly signaled that the Cuban government could be the next after Venezuela to fall to US pressure.

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Trump targeting immigrants from countries hit most by climate shocks

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A Guardian analysis reveals how most of 39 countries facing US entry restrictions are most vulnerable environmentally

Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown is largely targeting people from the countries most vulnerable to displacement from climate-driven disasters, a Guardian analysis shows.

As the Trump administration pushes policies to boost planet-heating fossil fuels, millions of people are being forced to flee their homelands due to storms, floods and droughts worsened by the climate crisis.

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The vanishing of Nicolás Maduro: how the former dictator is being erased from Venezuela

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Billboards are being painted over and former allies seem eager to forget the man they once glorified

For years, his bewhiskered face stared down from propaganda billboards glorifying the supposedly revolutionary rule of a dictator who styled himself as “the protector of the people”.

The spin-doctored adoration was such that factories churned out plastic action figures exalting Nicolás Maduro as an “indestructible” and “iron-fisted” caped crusader nicknamed “Super Moustache”.

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Former Air Canada pilot charged after allegedly flying without proper license for 16 years

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Geoffrey Wall is alleged to have flown over 900 flights domestically and internationally between 2009 and 2025

A former Air Canada pilot has been charged after flying for years without a proper license, Canadian police have said.

Geoffrey Wall, of Barrie, Ontario, is alleged to have operated as an airline captain between 2009 and 2025 without a license to fly large commercial passenger planes, according to Peel regional police.

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Florida shaken by 6.1-magnitude earthquake off coast of Cuba

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Earthquake was region’s strongest tremor in nearly 150 years and was also felt in parts of Mexico including Cancún

An earthquake on Monday off the coast of Cuba, which was that region’s strongest tremor in nearly 150 years, could be felt in Florida and parts of Mexico.

The 6.1-magnitude earthquake, which struck in the afternoon, occurred approximately 65 miles (105km) north-west of Mantua, Cuba, according to the US Geological Survey (USGS). The USGS added that the earthquake had a depth of 16 miles.

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Two US pilots killed after plane bound to pick up former MLB star crashes

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Plane on way to pick up Yadier Molina and his family crashed in Dominican Republic, killing pilot and co-pilot

A pilot and co-pilot from the United States have died in a fiery plane crash as they attempted an emergency landing in the Dominican Republic, authorities said.

Former major league baseball all-star catcher Yadier Molina said on social media that the plane was bound for Texas to pick him up, along with family and friends.

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Peru’s discontented voters face straight left-right choice in election runoff

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Keiko Fujimori, the daughter of 1990s leader Alberto, is vying with a congressman to become country’s ninth president in a decade

Peruvians go to the polls on Sunday in an election runoff that pits a perennial rightwing candidate, Keiko Fujimori, against a leftist congressman, Roberto Sánchez. Amid rising crime, chronic political instability, corruption scandals and voter apathy, they are vying to become Peru’s ninth president in a decade.

Fujimori, who is the daughter of the late president Alberto Fujimori, won 17% of the vote in the first round in April. Sánchez, a former trade and tourism minister, took 12 % of the vote, edging out Rafael López Aliaga, an ultra-conservative former Lima mayor. The stage is set for a polarised left-right replay of the country’s last election in 2021.

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‘Historic’: Canadian warehouse workers sign first-ever union deal with Walmart

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Union says collective agreement is just the start of a broader fight to unionize major employers across the country

Canadian warehouse workers have signed the first-ever collective agreement with Walmart, a breakthrough labour organizers are calling a “historic and powerful step”.

But the union says the deal with a corporation long hostile to organized labour is only an opening salvo in a broader fight to unionize major employers across the country.

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US imposes new sanctions on Cuban president and Castro family members

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US secretary of state Marco Rubio says anyone providing services to listed entities ‘is at risk of sanctions themselves’

The United States has announced fresh economic sanctions on Cuba’s president and some of his immediate family, alongside members of the Castro family, in Washington’s latest ramping up of pressure on its communist-led neighbour.

Among those targeted were the son and a grandson of former president Raúl Castro, who no longer holds an official position but remains a key figure on decisions about the future of the island.

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Canada endorses embattled marine park’s plan to relocate 30 beluga whales

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Beluga whales, which Marineland threatened to euthanize in 2025, will be moved to sanctuaries in Spain or across US

Canada and an embattled marine park have reached a tentative deal on the future of 30 beluga whales, ending a saga that has captivated the public and angered animal rights groups.

The federal fisheries ministry announced this week that all of Marineland’s belugas would be shipped to either Spain or one of four locations in the US, ending whale captivity in Canada.

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Outrage in Argentina after two teen girls murdered as femicide crisis endures

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Country is shaken by the brutal murders of two girls, aged 14 and 17, whose bodies were discovered just days apart

Argentina has reacted with fury after the bodies of two murdered teenage girls were found just two days apart. The latest killings underscore the South American country’s enduring femicide crisis despite years of feminist campaigning, and have prompted alarm over the decision to cut support for victims of gender-based violence under the far-right administration of Javier Milei.

Police found the remains of Agostina Vega, 14, on Saturday, in a field on the outskirts of the city of Córdoba. She had been fatally strangled and her body had been dismembered, according to local media reports.

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Kidnappings, threats and ‘protection fees’: how can Mexico confront rise in deadly extortion?

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With corrupt police on the streets and shopkeepers forced to pay gangs, president has vowed to tackle crime that now affects all parts of society

It was about 11pm and Luis* was about to get into an Uber to go home when the police car pulled up. One of the officers frisked him and produced two plastic bags with what looked like drugs: one contained some sort of powder, the other little crystals. Luis had never seen them before.

Luis, who asked not to use his real name for fear of reprisals, insisted that the drugs weren’t his, but the officers didn’t seem to care. They shoved him into the back of the police truck and drove into the night.

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Trump administration proposes 25% tariffs on Brazil despite US trade surplus

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US claims world’s 10th-biggest economy engages in ‘unreasonable’ trade practices that ‘restrict US commerce’

The Trump administration proposed 25% tariffs on imports from Brazil, charging that the world’s 10th-biggest economy engages in trade practices that are “unreasonable’’ and that “burden or restrict US commerce”.

Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva said he received the decision “with indignation”. The Brazil president also blamed the decision by the US administration on his rival in October’s elections, Flávio Bolsonaro, the senator who visited Washington last week. The senator is the son of former president Jair Bolsonaro, once nicknamed “the Trump of the Tropics” by his allies.

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Cricket Canada suspended over allegations of gang-linked corruption

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ICC’s decision comes amid growing concerns the team is being influenced by members of a notorious gang in India

Cricket’s international governing body has suspended Canada over what it described as “serious breaches of its membership obligations”, dealing the latest blow to an organization that critics say has become a “laughing stock” within the sport.

The suspension also comes amid growing concerns that one of Canada’s fastest-growing sports is being influenced by members of a notorious gang that operates with impunity from an Indian prison cell.

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Musket balls and a burnt hull: evidence of real pirates of the Caribbean found in Bahamas

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Exclusive: First shipwrecks found in Nassau harbour on New Providence, once the hideout of Blackbeard and Calico Jack

The first shipwrecks linked to the real pirates of the Caribbean in the Bahamas have been discovered by an international team co-directed by a British marine archaeologist.

Blackbeard and Calico Jack Rackham were among pirates who, between the 1690s and 1720s, turned Nassau on the island of New Providence into a hideout where they plotted their next heists on the high seas and divided up their plunder.

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