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WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. (AP) — Air Force fighter jets intercepted a civilian aircraft flying in the temporarily restricted airspace near Donald Trump’s Florida home Sunday, bringing the number of violations to more than 20 since the president took office on Jan. 20.

North American Aerospace Defense Command said in a statement that Sunday’s incident, which took place as Trump finished a round of golf at his West Palm Beach golf course, saw F-16s deploy flares to get the attention of the civilian pilot. Jets also conducted an intercept on Saturday morning shortly after Trump arrived at the course from his private Mar-a-Lago club and residence.

The airspace intrusions in the heavily congested south Florida airspace have prompted fighter jet intercepts but did not alter Trump’s schedule or impact his security, officials said. NORAD says the flares may have been visible from the ground but that they burn out quickly and don’t pose danger.

Federal officials maintain a permanent flight restriction over Trump’s club that expands to a radius of 30 nautical miles when the president is in residence.

Violations, and intercepts, are relatively routine, but NORAD is raising alarm over the frequency of the intrusions since Trump’s inauguration, saying it has responded to more than 20 incidents and blames civilian pilots for not following regulations requiring them to check for airspace restrictions before taking off.

“Adherence to TFR procedures is essential to ensure flight safety, national security, and the security of the President,” Gen. Gregory Guillot, the commander of NORAD and US Northern Command said in a statement. “The procedures are not optional, and the excessive number of recent TFR violations indicates many civil aviators are not reading Notice to Airmen, or NOTAMS, before each flight as required by the FAA, and has resulted in multiple responses by NORAD fighter aircraft to guide offending aircraft out of the TFR.”

Zeke Miller, The Associated Press



OTTAWA — If Mark Carney wins the Liberal leadership race on Sunday, he would not be the first prime minister to be sworn in without having a seat in Parliament.

In June 1984, the unelected John Turner won the party leadership and succeeded Pierre Trudeau as prime minister two weeks later.

The Liberals went down to Brian Mulroney’s Progressive Conservatives in a landslide defeat that September, leaving Turner with a newly won seat but his party out of power.

In 1925 and again in 1945, Canada’s longest serving prime minister Mackenzie King lost his seat but remained at the Liberal helm to form government, winning byelections months afterward in both cases.

As far back as Confederation, Sir John A. Macdonald was appointed by the governor general to form the first constituent government on July 1, 1867, but was not elected to the House of Commons until a few weeks later.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who announced his intention to resign in early January, confirmed on Thursday he intends to hand over his post in the next few days or weeks to his successor, with a general election likely this spring.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published March 9, 2025.

Michel Saba, The Canadian Press


NEW YORK (AP) — At Fishtown Seafood, owner Bryan Szeliga is worried about the oysters.

Szeliga, who operates three retail and wholesale locations in Philadelphia and Haddonfield, N.J., sells a range of seafood. But briny, slurpable oysters are the biggest part of his overall business. And 60% to 70% come from Canada.

The Trump’s administration’s on-again, off-again 25% tariffs on imports from Canada — which went into effect on Tuesday only to be suspended on some items for a month on Thursday — are giving Szeliga whiplash. The flip-flopping making it tough to plan ahead. And if the tariffs do eventually go into effect, he’ll likely need to raise prices and offer his customers fewer choices of oysters.

“Part of the problem of the ‘chaos and shock and awe’ approach to the negotiation is you can’t actually really business plan based on knowing what is and isn’t actually going to happen,” he said. “That’s a big problem.”

Szeliga started Fishtown Seafood four years ago after other jobs in the food industry including chef and working for a nonprofit. His customers include neighborhood locals and other who shop at his retail shops as well as restaurant wholesale clients.

He sources some of his U.S. products directly from fish farms but for Canadian oysters he goes through dealers.

“They’re larger companies that aggregate from all the (seafood) producers and then and then distribute throughout the country,” he said.

There’s also a quality consideration.

“Canadian oysters simply have the size, flavor profile, and brand recognition that our customers prefer and have grown to love,” he said.

Trying to plan

On Tuesday, most of his suppliers told Szeliga they’d be raising prices. He only made one purchase while the tariff was in effect, buying some “sweet petite” oysters from Prince Edward Island, to make sure a wholesale client had enough product. He paid the whole 25% markup himself and didn’t pass it along to his client, eating the extra cost. The suppliers’ price increases are likely to come down now that the tariffs are postponed, but only for a month.

Now that he has a month reprieve, Szeliga said he plans to adjust his own inventory and work with his wholesale clients to plan out a menu that will be less affected by the tariffs. That might mean replacing higher-priced, higher-quality oysters with domestic or lower-priced Canadian offerings.

“Now that we have a picture of what this is probably going to look like, let’s just start designing out your menus so that we’re prepared and it’s not complete bedlam again,” he said. “Even if prices come down, we know prices are going to come up to X, Y, Z (when the tariffs return).” He said he’ll be asking his clients, “What products are going to work for you in a month?”

A blow to the burgeoning oyster market

Szeliga isn’t alone with his concerns – the entire oyster market could be affected.

The total value of U.S. imported seafood in 2023 was $25.5 billion. Canada, as the largest supplier, delivered more than $3.6 billion in seafood products to the United States in 2023. Imports of seafood from Canada into the U.S. rose 10% in 2024 to $3.96 billion, according to the USDA.

While oysters are just a fraction of that – the most popular seafood remains shrimp, salmon and tuna – oyster demand has been growing. In 2022, oysters joined the National Fisheries Institute Top 10 List for the first time ever.

Szeliga has watched as the popularity meant more and more restaurants, beyond just oyster bars, began offering the bivalve on their menus. He worries that growth will now “fade and fizzle.”

“I think it’s really going to take the momentum out of what is a growth industry,” he said.

Limiting choice, raising prices

Szeliga said he’ll likely limit the number of oysters he carries in his shop from 12 to about 10 to make sure he can still offer a range of higher and lower price oysters that his customers want, even if he no longer carries the most expensive options.

Switching to oysters harvested only in the U.S. isn’t an option, because although there are numerous types of oysters available on U.S. coasts, the majority of U.S. seafood is imported. Canada is the largest supplier of seafood to the U.S. That’s hard to match.

“For domestic oysters the production is pretty maxed out right now,” he said. “Oysters can take several years to grow and make it to market so a farmer would have needed to make a business selection several years ago to grow their business to be in a good position right now to take full advantage of this situation.”

Szeliga worries that Canadian producers might start limiting what they sell to the U.S. market after the tariff confusion.

So ultimately, his customers should expect less choice of oysters, and for a higher price since not all prices will come back down after they’ve been marked up.

“Some products that were really ‘value’ purchases in the past. I think those suppliers, it forced them to realize they were value,” he said. “And I think there are going to be products that aren’t going to come back down (price-wise),” he said.

Mae Anderson, The Associated Press





DENVER (AP) — For decades, conservatives in Congress have talked about the need to cut government deeply, but they have always pulled back from mandating specific reductions, fearful of voter backlash.

Now, President Donald Trump’s administration is trying to make major cuts in government through the so-called Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, run by billionaire Elon Musk — an initiative led by an unelected businessman who’s unlikely to ever run for office and was appointed by a termed-out president who no longer needs to face voters again.

The dynamic of cutting government while also cutting out those who answer to voters has alarmed even some fiscal conservatives who have long pushed for Congress to reduce spending through the means laid out in the Constitution: a system of checks and balances that includes lawmakers elected across the country working with the president.

“Some members of the Trump administration got frustrated that Congress won’t cut spending and decided to go around them,” said Jessica Reidl of the conservative think tank The Manhattan Institute. Now, she said, “no one who has to face voters again is determining spending levels.”

That may be changing.

On Thursday, facing mounting court challenges to the legality of Musk ordering layoffs, Trump told his Cabinet that Musk could only make recommendations about government reductions. And there were more signs that Congress, after sitting on the sidelines for nearly the first two months of Trump’s administration, is slowly getting back into the game.

On Wednesday, Republican senators told Musk that he needed to ask Congress to approve specific cuts, which they can do on an up-or-down, filibuster-free vote through a process known as recission.

Senators said Musk had never heard of the process before. That was a striking admission given that it’s the only way for the executive branch to legally refuse to spend money that Congress has given it.

“To make it real, to make it go beyond the moment of the day, it needs to come back in the form of a rescission package,” said Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky, a longtime advocate of spending reductions who said he introduced the idea of recission to Musk during the lunch meeting of the GOP caucus.

Of course, letting Congress have the final word may be constitutional, but it would open up the process to individual representatives or senators balking at cuts because of home-state interests or other concerns, as some have already. But Douglas Holtz-Eakin, a former director of the Congressional Budget Office and an economist in George W. Bush’s administration, said that “messy” process is a superior one.

“There’s always this instinct in people to insulate decisions from politics,” Holtz-Eakin said. “It’s a mistake in a democracy. It’s really messy. You’re not going to get the cleanliness of a corporate reorganization.”

Riedl noted she has advocated for deep cuts for decades, but there’s a reason Congress has balked.

“If Congress won’t pass certain spending cuts, it’s because the American people don’t want it enough,” she said. “If I want spending levels to be cut, it’s my job to persuade the people of America to agree with me.”

Trump and his supporters argue they did just that in the last presidential election when he promised to shake up Washington: “The people elected me to do the job and I’m doing it,” Trump said during his address to Congress last week.

A corporate-style approach to government has long been the goal of conservatives, especially one segment that has recently called for a more CEO-style leader who is less tied down by democratic commitments to voters. Musk has embodied that, bringing the same disruptive, cost-cutting zeal he brought to his private companies. Some of his DOGE moves mirrored steps he took to slash the social media site Twitter, including the email offering buyouts, both times called “Fork in the Road.”

Don Moynihan, a professor of public policy at the University of Michigan, said the effort seems more destructive than just an attempt to shrink government in ways conservatives have long advocated.

“It is usurping the role of Congress on spending and program design, using cuts as a backdoor way to impound and close agencies created by Congress,” Moynihan said. “It is implementing an unprecedented scale of disruption.”

Grover Norquist, an anti-tax activist whose pledge to make government small enough to “drown it in a bathtub” has made him an icon for small-government conservatives, cheered the DOGE project. He said Congress has to authorize any real reductions, but hoped that DOGE’s cuts show the legislative branch that voters will not panic when government is shrunk.

“If we do something for three years, they’ll make it the law,” Norquist said of Congress. “They’ll see it’s safe, they’ll see it’s successful. They’ll come in and put their name on it.”

Norquist acknowledged that Congress has repeatedly balked at the level of cuts that he would like to see, even under unified Republican control. He asserted that “95%” of Republicans support such reductions but “that wasn’t enough to get it across the finish line” in an era where the majority party usually only has a razor-thin margin of control in either chamber.

The past nearly half-century of politics has been defined by conservatives pledging to cut government spending, only to see it continue to grow. Republican Ronald Reagan swept into the presidency in 1980 pledging to cut government, but when he left eight years later its size had increased. The trend continued through Trump’s first term and during Democrat Joe Biden’s presidency.

Now, however, Trump will not face voters again, despite occasional quips about seeking a constitutionally prohibited third term. He has been open about his grudge against the federal bureaucracy, which he blames for many of his troubles during his initial four years in office.

“I don’t think previous presidents have had the same animus towards the federal government this one has,” Holtz-Eakin said.

He noted that Trump has launched a second cost-cutting initiative through traditional channels — his own Office of Management and Budget, which asked agencies to prepare for mass layoffs. That, Holtz-Eakin said, makes those coming reductions likelier to stick than DOGE cuts.

Holtz-Eakin said there are initial signs of voter discontent over the pace, depth and chaos of the cuts. “The usual way you visit that on a president is you wipe out his party in the midterms,” Holtz-Eakin said. “You never evade the voters.”

Nicholas Riccardi, The Associated Press







OTTAWA — Liberals are gathering in Ottawa on the final day of their party’s leadership contest to vote for who they think is best to replace Prime Minister Justin Trudeau at the helm.

Former Bank of Canada governor Mark Carney remains the presumed front runner and as of this weekend has lapped his opponents in fundraising figures by millions of dollars.

Former finance minister Chrystia Freeland, Liberal lawmaker Karina Gould and Montreal businessman Frank Baylis are all vying for the party’s top job.

The country should know for sure by this evening who will be the next prime minister — even if they only last in the role for a matter of weeks.

Speculation is swirling in Ottawa that the winner could replace Trudeau as prime minister within a matter of days and then within weeks call an early election.

The party is also expected to pay tribute to Trudeau this evening as it sends him off with a farewell.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published March 9, 2025.

Kyle Duggan, The Canadian Press


HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — Facing projections of spiking energy demand, U.S. states are pressing for ways to build new power plants faster as policymakers increasingly worry about protecting their residents and economies from rising electric bills, power outages and other consequences of falling behind Big Tech in a race for electricity.

Some states are dangling financial incentives. Others are undoing decades of regulatory structures in what they frame as a race to serve the basic needs of residents, avoid a catastrophe and keep their economies on track in a fast-electrifying society.

“I don’t think we’ve seen anything quite like this,” said Todd Snitchler, president and CEO of the Electric Power Supply Association, which represents independent power plant owners.

The spike in demand for electricity is being driven, in large part, by the artificial intelligence race as tech companies are snapping up real estate and seeking power to feed their energy-hungry data centers. Federal incentives to rebuild the manufacturing sector also are helping drive demand.

In some cases, Big Tech is arranging its own power projects.

But energy companies also are searching for ways to capitalize on opportunities afforded by the first big increase in electricity consumption in a couple of decades, and that is pitting state political leaders against each other for the new jobs and investment that come with new power plants.

Governors want to fast-track power plants

Moves by states come as a fossil fuelfriendly President Donald Trump and Republican-controlled Congress take power in Washington, D.C., slashing regulations around oil and gas, boostingdrilling opportunities and encouraging the construction of pipelines and refineries that can export liquefied natural gas.

States are seeking action, with the National Governors Association asking Congress to make it easier and faster to build power plants and criticizing the U.S. as among the slowest developed nations in approving energy projects.

But there may be less that the federal government can do right away about a looming power shortage, since greenlighting power plants to feed the electric grid is largely the province of state regulators and regional grid operators.

Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro wants to establish an agency to fast-track the construction of big power plants and dangle hundreds of millions of dollars in tax breaks for projects providing electricity to the grid.

The state, and the country, needs more power plants to win the artificial intelligence race and provide reliable and affordable power to residents, said Shapiro, who suggested Pennsylvania may leave the regional grid operated by PJM Interconnection in favor of “going it alone.”

“It has proven over the last number of years too darn hard to get enough new generation projects off the ground because of how slow PJM‘s queue is,” Shapiro told a news conference on Feb. 27.

Indiana, Michigan and Louisiana are exploring ideas to attract nuclear power while Maryland lawmakers are floating ideas about commissioning the construction of a new power plant there.

In Ohio, a lawmaker wants to restrict the influence of electric utilities in hopes of giving independent power producers more incentive to build power plants to feed the state’s fast-growing tech sector.

The bill, which awaits a vote, won the support of the Ohio Consumers’ Counsel, the state’s residential ratepayer watchdog, and business groups whose members care about electric prices. However, it split the energy sector between companies operating in competitive markets and those operating under state utility monopolies.

States competing against each other

In Missouri, utilities including Ameren and Evergy, as well as the Missouri Chamber of Commerce and Industry, labor unions and the state’s top utility regulator are backing legislation to repeal a nearly half-century old law preventing utilities from charging customers to build a power plant until it is operational.

The law was approved in a 1976 voter referendum when states were looking to hedge against utilities saddling ratepayers with financing upfront, potentially bloated, inefficient or, worse, aborted power projects.

Consumer and environmental groups protested the bill, saying it would result in new natural gas plants that are likelier to be more costly to ratepayers.

Last year, similar legislation passed almost unanimously in Kansas, along with companion legislation extending tax breaks to new power plants.

Within months, Evergy announced alongside the state’s leaders that it would build two 705-megawatt natural gas plants and said the legislation will “help Kansas compete with other states for investment and ultimately save customers money.”

John Coffman, the utility consumer counsel for the Consumers Council of Missouri, said utilities are playing the two states, Missouri and Kansas, against each other and were planning to build the power plants anyway.

But, he said, “They’re just looking for opportunities to squeeze more money out of the process.”

Energy companies see an opportunity

Snitchler said action is being spurred by states realizing that longstanding power reserves are dwindling, especially as coal-fired and nuclear power plants retire, and now all sorts of power companies are leaping at the chance to make money.

A pitfall he sees in the race to build plants is an undoing of protections that some states once adopted to shield ratepayers and put the risk of building expensive power projects onto corporate shareholders.

“The problem, of course, is it shifts the risk back on the people who perhaps should not be bearing it,” Snitchler said.

A Pennsylvania state lawmaker, Sen. Gene Yaw, wants to set up a massive power plant-financing fund like Texas, which established a $10 billion low-interest loan program after the state was wracked by a deadly winter blackout in 2021.

Yaw, a Republican, has no misgivings about Pennsylvania helping finance power plants. Even by conservative estimates, the state will need dozens more power plants to meet projections of rising demand, he said.

“And what do we have underway or planned right now? Nothing,” Yaw said. “And we haven’t built anything since 2019. So we’ve got to do something to encourage people to come here and build in Pennsylvania just to maintain the status quo.”

___

Follow Marc Levy on X at https://x.com/timelywriter.

Marc Levy, The Associated Press



SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (AP) — A new law in South Dakota prohibiting the use of eminent domain to acquire land for carbon capture pipelines raises questions about the viability of a proposed 2,500 mile (4,023-kilometer) project snaking through five Midwest states.

Summit Carbon Solutions, the company behind the estimated $8.9 billion pipeline, vowed to keep pursuing the project despite South Dakota Gov. Larry Rhoden’s announcement Thursday that he had signed a bill into law that will make routing the line much more difficult. The law bans Summit from forcing South Dakota landowners to allow the pipeline through their property.

Plans call for the pipeline to carry greenhouse gas emissions from more than 50 ethanol plants in Iowa, Minnesota, Nebraska, North Dakota and South Dakota to a spot in North Dakota, where it would be permanently stored underground.

Legal action is possible

It’s unclear whether Summit will pursue legal action but the company said in a statement that “all options are on the table” and the project “moves forward” in other states. The company promised it would have more news soon.

Large pipeline projects typically rely on eminent domain, with companies arguing that even if most landowners agree to grant access to their property, a project can be scuttled if only a few refuse.

Summit says the company, which has secured over 2,700 easements across the region, has approval for routes in Iowa and North Dakota and a leg in Minnesota.

Can the line be routed through Minnesota?

The current proposed route would cut through nearly 700 miles (1,126.5 kilometers) of South Dakota before entering North Dakota, so rerouting to the east through Minnesota would be a big challenge.

A Summit spokesperson did not respond to questions Friday about whether the company would consider a new route.

The sponsor of the South Dakota bill, Republican Rep. Karla Lems, said Summit could either reroute its pipeline through Minnesota into North Dakota or “negotiate with landowners in South Dakota” and go around opponents.

Gov. Rhoden said the South Dakota law wasn’t intended to kill the project and suggested Summit see it as “an opportunity to reset.”

Minnesota is a relatively small part of Summit’s overall project. The only segment approved in the state is a 28-mile (45-kilometer) leg from an ethanol plant near Fergus Falls to the North Dakota border. Summit’s project also includes two legs in southern Minnesota that would go into Iowa.

A Minnesota Public Utilities Commission spokesperson did not respond to phone or email messages.

The pipeline’s importance to the ethanol industry

The country’s transition to electric vehicles has been slower than many people expected, but most think a shift away from internal combustion engines will eventually happen.

Nearly 40% of the nation’s corn crop is brewed into ethanol, which is blended into most gasoline sold in the U.S. Midwest farmers and the ethanol industry therefore see it as essential to have new markets as less of the fuel additive goes to power cars.

They see passenger jet fuel as a potentially huge new market for ethanol. However, under current rules the process for turning ethanol into aviation fuel would need to emit less carbon dioxide to qualify for tax breaks intended to reduce greenhouses.

The carbon capture pipeline is a key part of achieving those goals, Iowa Renewable Fuels Association Executive Director Monte Shaw said.

Walt Wendland, who runs an ethanol plant in Onida, South Dakota, said the “ethanol industry is a margin business” and the new state law will put South Dakota ethanol producers at a disadvantage.

“Ever since I built a plant, I never wanted an advantage, just don’t put me at a disadvantage,” Wendland said.

Will the pipeline ever be built?

It has been four years since Summit proposed building the pipeline, along with two other companies that later abandoned their plans. It has been a challenging process for Summit, which dealt with lawsuits in Nebraska and elsewhere, opposition before a regulatory commission in Iowa and now the eminent domain ban in South Dakota.

In its statement, Summit expressed optimism about the future but didn’t offer specifics about how it could build a pipeline without eminent domain authority in South Dakota.

Since the pipeline was proposed, the federal government’s approach to climate change also has changed dramatically. Democratic President Joe Biden increased tax incentives under the Inflation Reduction Act and Bipartisan Infrastructure Law to encourage carbon capture as an effort to slow climate change.

However, Republican President Donald Trump has emphasized the need for more oil and gas drilling and coal mining, and has put far less emphasis on alternative energy. Trump has not indicated whether his views will lead to changing federal policy regarding carbon capture pipelines.

___

Dura reported from Bismarck, North Dakota.

Sarah Raza And Jack Dura, The Associated Press


COX’S BAZAR, Bangladesh (AP) — Rohingya refugees in crammed Bangladeshi camps say they are worried about a U.S. decision to cut food rations by half beginning next month, while a refugee official says the reduction will impact the nutrition of more than 1 million refugees and create “social and mental pressure.”

President Donald Trump abruptly stopped most foreign aid and dismantled the U.S. Agency for International Development, which has significantly hampered the global humanitarian sector. Trump’s Jan. 20 executive order froze the funding for a 90-day review.

The World Food Program, the main U.N. food agency, recently announced that cuts to food rations will take effect from April 1 in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh, where dozens of camps are inhabited by Rohingya refugees.

More than 700,000 Muslim Rohingya fled to Bangladesh from Myanmar starting in late August 2017 when Myanmar’s military launched a “clearance operation.” The ethnic group faces discrimination and are denied citizenship and other rights in the Buddhist-majority nation. Following a miliary takeover in 2021, the country has been engulfed in an armed conflict widely seen as civil war.

It was not immediately clear if the WFP’s decision was directly related to the Trump administration’s action.

“We received a letter that (says) previously it was $12.50, and now it is $6. They used to get $12.50 per month, and from now $6, this will greatly affect them,” Shamsud Douza, additional refugee relief and repatriation commissioner of Bangladesh, told The Associated Press.

“As the food is cut, they will get less nutritious food, which may lead to a lack of nutrition. There will be social and mental pressure created amongst the Rohingya people in their community. They will have to look for an alternative for the food,” he said.

Douza said there are more sectors where budgets have been cut beyond the food rations, but he would not say whether WFP cuts were related to the U.S. funding rollback.

“Generally, there will be less (support) for the (Rohingya) response after the funding cuts. The response already has been slowed, and some people, including Rohingya, have lost their jobs, and some services are reduced. It does not bring a good result when the available services get reduced,” he said.

The interim Bangladesh government said the end of USAID payments would stop other projects in Bangladesh, but funding for Rohingya refugees will continue to flow.

The U.S. has been the top donor to Bangladesh for Rohingya refugees, providing the U.N. with emergency food and nutrition assistance. The U.S. usually provides almost half of the aid money spent on the humanitarian response to Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh, which provided about $300 million in 2024.

As the news of the impending food reductions spread through the camps in Cox’s Bazar, fear and frustration gripped the refugees.

“I am afraid now about how I am going to run my family, as we don’t have any income-generating opportunities here. I got scared when I heard it,” 40-year-old Manzur Ahmed said. “How will I buy rice, chilies, salt, sugar and dal, let alone fish, meat and vegetables, with 700 taka ($6)? We won’t even be able to buy (cooking) oil. How are we going to get them?”

Medical treatment also is decreasing, refugees said.

“When we go to the hospital, they don’t provide medicines unless it’s an emergency. They only provide medicines to the very emergency patients. Earlier, they would treat anyone who felt unwell, but now they only provide treatment to those who are in an emergency,” 32-year-old Dildar Begum said.

Hundreds of thousands have lived in Bangladesh for decades and about 70,000 crossed the border from Myanmar in 2024. During fighting with the military junta, the opposition force known as the Arakan Army effectively took over the Rakhine state where Rohingya were displaced and took shelter in Bangladesh.

Bangladesh says Rohingya refugees must return to Myanmar, which has been accused in an international court of genocide against Rohingya.

___

Alam reported from Dhaka, Bangladesh.

Shafiqur Rahman And Julhas Alam, The Associated Press





WINNIPEG — Manitoba’s premier says he has spoken with the family of an Indigenous woman murdered by a serial killer, and he hopes the confirmation that her remains have been found during a search at a Winnipeg landfill helps them move forward.

“For so long now, years now, her journey to the next phase with her family being able to grieve her, lay her to rest, have a funeral or however they want to remember (her), has been on hold and disrupted and made the subject of so much public scrutiny,” Wab Kinew told reporters at an event Saturday at an Indigenous resource centre.

“To me, it’s about a grieving family and healing for them.”

A statement from the Manitoba government late Friday confirmed that remains found during a search of the Prairie Green landfill were those of 39-year-old Morgan Harris.

The government statement said another set of remains was part of the recovery, and more information would be provided as facts are confirmed.

The search of the landfill for Harris, as well as another victim, Marcedes Myran, began in December and has been contentious, but Kinew said in the end government did the right thing by moving forward with it.

“I feel that Manitobans and Canadians have shown their true nature. It wasn’t easy to get to this point, but at the end of the day we did come together to do right by these families,” Kinew said.

Jeremy Skibicki was convicted last year of first-degree murder in the slayings of Harris, Myran and two other Indigenous women.

In a statement posted on social media on Saturday, Assembly of First Nations National Chief Cindy Woodhouse Nepinak offered condolences to Harris’ family, saying the victims of Skibicki were entitled to respect and dignity in death.

“For the three long years, these families have carried an unimaginable burden, fighting for the recovery of their loved ones. They should never have had to fight this hard,” Woodhouse Nepinak said.

Families of the women and Indigenous leaders in the province advocated for years for a search of the landfill, taking their fight to Parliament Hill and the Manitoba legislature.

Police refused to search the site over safety concerns. The Progressive Conservative government at the time also said it wouldn’t support a search, and during the 2023 provincial election campaign the party touted that decision.

Kinew pledged there would be a search and, after his NDP were elected, the province and the federal government put up $20 million to fund one.

Ross Gardner, a crime scene consultant in the United States, had told The Canadian Press two years ago that a search could succeed but would require a monumental effort due to the passage of time and the compacting process at the landfill.

Gardner commended the searchers on Saturday, and noted the confirmation of Harris’ remains indicates that whatever strategy they’re using is working.

“Now they’ve got an area they can at least concentrate on. That is intelligence in and of itself that, hey, we’re in the right ballpark,” Gardner said in an interview.

The murder trial heard that Harris, a member of Long Plain First Nation, had been living in Winnipeg before she was last seen on May 1, 2022.

It heard Skibicki targeted the women at homeless shelters in Winnipeg and disposed of their bodies in garbage bins in his neighbourhood.

The remains of Rebecca Contois were found in a garbage bin and at a different landfill. Those of an unidentified woman Indigenous grassroots community members named Mashkode Bizhiki’ikwe, or Buffalo Woman, have not been found and police have not said where they might be.

Winnipeg’s former police chief, Danny Smyth, retired in September. His successor, Gene Bowers, was announced on Friday and he said in a statement that the department’s thoughts go out to the families of the victims, as well as “all families who are awaiting word on their missing loved ones.”

“On Monday, March 10, 2025, my appointment as Chief of Police will take effect, and I intend to action my vision for the Winnipeg Police Service to become leaders in reconciliation,” Bowers said in the statement.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published March 8, 2025.

— By Rob Drinkwater in Edmonton, with files from Brittany Hobson.

The Canadian Press


A B.C. union says the federal government should put an “immediate end” to Canada’s Temporary Foreign Worker program in the face of U.S. tariffs and “uncertainty” caused by the Trump administration.

Ironworkers Local 97 business manager Doug Parton says the trade war with the U.S. and “looming tariffs” mean that jobs should go to “qualified Canadians” rather than foreign workers brought in to “fill gaps in the labour market.”

Parton says the federal government needs to “curb the misuse” of the program and prioritize investing in training Canadian workers.

The local says the program “undermines worker safety and fairness” to the detriment of temporary foreign workers and Canadian employees.

It says a “temporary pause” is needed for the construction industry in order to “review and strengthen standards” for safety and sustainability of the workforce.

Parton says the union wants to work with lawmakers to reform the program to shore up support for those in the skilled trade sector.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published March 8, 2025.

Darryl Greer, The Canadian Press