NarrativeBear

A second-hand Zelda cartridge. A cryptic forum thread. A generation of frightened children. This is the story of Ben Drowned – the internet's most infamous video game ghost.

The Ford government is planning to crackdown on municipal councillors found violating codes of conduct, introducing stiffer measures that could see a councillor forcibly removed.

On Thursday, the province re-introduced legislation that was brought forward prior to Ontario’s election, proposing changes through the Municipality Accountability Act.

The proposed legislation intends to standardize codes of conduct and training across Ontario and a consistent integrity commissioner inquiry process for councils to utilize.

For more serious violations, a sitting municipal councillor could face being kicked off council for a four-year period under Ontario’s proposal.

The wife of an active-duty Coast Guardsman was arrested earlier this week by federal immigration authorities inside the family residential section of the U.S. Naval Air Station at Key West, Florida, after she was flagged in a routine security check, officials said Saturday.

According to a U.S. official, the woman’s work visa expired around 2017, and she was marked for removal from the United States a few years later. She and the Coast Guardsman were married early this year, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss an enforcement incident.

The official said that when the woman and her Coast Guard husband were preparing to move into their on-base housing on Wednesday, they went to the visitor control center to get a pass so she could access the Key West installation. During the routine security screening required for base access, the woman’s name was flagged as a problem.

Base personnel contacted the Naval Criminal Investigative Service, which looked into the matter, said the official. NCIS and Coast Guard security personnel got permission from the base commander to enter the installation and then went to the Coast Guardsman’s home on Thursday, the official said. They were joined by personnel from Homeland Security Investigations, a unit within Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

HSI eventually took the spouse into custody, and the official said they believe she is still being detained. Officials did not provide the name of the country she is from.

A man is dead after being shot by Peel police at Toronto Pearson's Terminal 1 Thursday morning. 

The shooting happened shortly before 7 a.m. after police received a call from a member of the public about a dispute involving two or three people, Peel police Chief Nishan Duraiappah said. The group knew each other and was there "for the purposes of travel," he said. 

Three officers responded to the call. Police had been attempting to mediate the dispute for around 10 minutes when the man abruptly took out a firearm and pointed it at an officer, he said. 

The man was "in distress" and had been in an SUV at Terminal 1 departures, but the shooting happened outside the vehicle, the SIU said.

The letter targets my wife's background. We both feel uneasy about this, and feel like our privacy was invaded.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/27838901

Indore in Madhya Pradesh, India, was once dotted with fetid waste dumps but after a huge campaign is now virtually spotless

This is what happens usually in India: a politician wakes up and launches a cleanliness “drive” with fanfare. They ostentatiously start sweeping a street and speak solemnly about civic duty while the media take photos. The next day it’s over and things go back to how they were before.

But not in Indore in Madhya Pradesh. From 2017, when it won the prize for being the cleanest city in the country, it kept winning for eight straight years, until last year.

Before 2017, Indore had been ranked 25th of 471 towns and cities in the government’s cleanliness rankings.

In many cities, families will keep their home scrupulously clean, but a few feet from their front door rubbish is left lying around.

“That other area is seen as someone else’s responsibility and no one sees any contradiction in walking past a stinking pile of rubbish to their clean home,” said Arjun Sehgal, a local chemistry tutor.

Residents have taken up cleanliness as their own personal responsibility, according to Prabhnit Sawhney, a petrol pump owner. “I’ve seen people stopping someone who littered. I’ve seen drivers stop their car when they see rubbish on the street to remove it. It’s become a kind of mission that inspires everyone,” he said.

Indore in Madhya Pradesh, India, was once dotted with fetid waste dumps but after a huge campaign is now virtually spotless

This is what happens usually in India: a politician wakes up and launches a cleanliness “drive” with fanfare. They ostentatiously start sweeping a street and speak solemnly about civic duty while the media take photos. The next day it’s over and things go back to how they were before.

But not in Indore in Madhya Pradesh. From 2017, when it won the prize for being the cleanest city in the country, it kept winning for eight straight years, until last year.

Before 2017, Indore had been ranked 25th of 471 towns and cities in the government’s cleanliness rankings.

In many cities, families will keep their home scrupulously clean, but a few feet from their front door rubbish is left lying around.

“That other area is seen as someone else’s responsibility and no one sees any contradiction in walking past a stinking pile of rubbish to their clean home,” said Arjun Sehgal, a local chemistry tutor.

Residents have taken up cleanliness as their own personal responsibility, according to Prabhnit Sawhney, a petrol pump owner. “I’ve seen people stopping someone who littered. I’ve seen drivers stop their car when they see rubbish on the street to remove it. It’s become a kind of mission that inspires everyone,” he said.

Gladys and Nelson Gonzalez have called the United States home since 1989. Their three daughters, now grown, were all born and raised in California.

“For nearly four decades, they have built a life here — raising three daughters, giving back to their community, and recently welcoming their first grandchild,” their daughter Stephanie Gonzalez wrote on a GoFundMe page for the family. “Now, they are being treated as criminals.”

Last month, the parents checked in at an immigration court in Santa Ana, just “like they have been doing since 2000,” Stephanie wrote in an email to CNN.

But this check-in ended with a much different outcome.

The couple was arrested and handcuffed during their February 21 appointment and put in federal custody, where they spent three weeks before being deported to Colombia.

“We didn’t expect that they would be apprehended and held in custody. And again, it’s not really unique to them anymore. It’s happening across the country,” Crooms told CNN, pointing to recent immigration policy changes in the US two months into the current administration.

The Gonzalezes spent many years searching for a viable path to citizenship, paid their taxes and never had any trouble with the law, according to Crooms and their daughters.

Ideally, the couple would have been given time to get their affairs in order and say goodbye to their daughters and grandchild, according to Crooms. But that didn’t happen.

“We had to go and pick up their car from the parking lot and didn’t get to say goodbye,” Stephanie said.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/26834396

Family and friends of a Vancouver entrepreneur are demanding answers after she was unexpectedly detained by U.S. immigration officials while attempting to cross the border with a job offer and visa paperwork in hand.

Jasmine Mooney, a 35-year-old business consultant and co-founder of a drink brand, has been detained for 11 days under what her supporters describe as “inhumane conditions,” with no clear explanation of why she was arrested by U.S. Customs and Border Protection.

Eagles, who said she found out about Mooney’s detention through a family friend, noted that her daughter had been working in the U.S. but was detained at the San Ysidro U.S.-Mexico border crossing near San Diego, Calif., on March 3.

Eagles said an immigration lawyer was finally able to reach Mooney late Thursday, but despite having no criminal record and facing no charges, Mooney remains in custody with no clear timeline for release.

“We have no issue with her being denied entry, we have no issue with her initially being detained. But we have a huge issue with the inhumane treatment she is receiving and that she knows nothing, has not been charged and has not been able to speak with us directly,” her mother said.

Eagles said the family has received an update from a third-party that Mooney may have a tentative release date of March 24, which — if true — remains “still too far away.”

“By then, she’ll have been in custody for three weeks,” Eagles said. “That’s twice as long as she’s been there already. And so we want to get her home as soon as possible.”

Mooney was detained by border officials while trying to enter the U.S., as she had previously done successfully when applying for a Trade NAFTA, or TN, work visa.

After spending three nights in detention at the world’s busiest land border, Eagles said her daughter was transferred to a facility in San Diego then to the San Luis Regional Detention Center south of Yuma, Arizona, where she has since been sleeping on the floor of a cell alongside nearly 30 other women.

Eagles said that each time her daughter was transferred, she was handcuffed and in chains.

“I was put in a cell, and I had to sleep on a mat with no blanket, no pillow, with an aluminum foil wrapped over my body like a dead body for 2½ days,” she told a reporter.

As her detention continues, Mooney remains confined to a concrete cell with no natural light, no mats, no blankets, and minimal bathroom facilities.

“Every single guard that sees me is like ‘What are you doing here? I don’t understand — you’re Canadian. How are you here?’” she told ABC News.

“One or two months ago, if CBP officers found an issue with a Canadian’s work visa, the typical route taken is revoking the visa and ordering that person to leave the country,” said Neitor. “To detain someone like this would have been considered extreme not long ago, but’s it happening much more frequently nowadays.”

Neitor noted that while there is no limit on how long U.S. immigration authorities can detain a non-U.S. citizen, individuals have the legal right to talk to a lawyer while in detention.

Family and friends of a Vancouver entrepreneur are demanding answers after she was unexpectedly detained by U.S. immigration officials while attempting to cross the border with a job offer and visa paperwork in hand.

Jasmine Mooney, a 35-year-old business consultant and co-founder of a drink brand, has been detained for 11 days under what her supporters describe as “inhumane conditions,” with no clear explanation of why she was arrested by U.S. Customs and Border Protection.

Eagles, who said she found out about Mooney’s detention through a family friend, noted that her daughter had been working in the U.S. but was detained at the San Ysidro U.S.-Mexico border crossing near San Diego, Calif., on March 3.

Eagles said an immigration lawyer was finally able to reach Mooney late Thursday, but despite having no criminal record and facing no charges, Mooney remains in custody with no clear timeline for release.

“We have no issue with her being denied entry, we have no issue with her initially being detained. But we have a huge issue with the inhumane treatment she is receiving and that she knows nothing, has not been charged and has not been able to speak with us directly,” her mother said.

Eagles said the family has received an update from a third-party that Mooney may have a tentative release date of March 24, which — if true — remains “still too far away.”

“By then, she’ll have been in custody for three weeks,” Eagles said. “That’s twice as long as she’s been there already. And so we want to get her home as soon as possible.”

Mooney was detained by border officials while trying to enter the U.S., as she had previously done successfully when applying for a Trade NAFTA, or TN, work visa.

After spending three nights in detention at the world’s busiest land border, Eagles said her daughter was transferred to a facility in San Diego then to the San Luis Regional Detention Center south of Yuma, Arizona, where she has since been sleeping on the floor of a cell alongside nearly 30 other women.

Eagles said that each time her daughter was transferred, she was handcuffed and in chains.

“I was put in a cell, and I had to sleep on a mat with no blanket, no pillow, with an aluminum foil wrapped over my body like a dead body for 2½ days,” she told a reporter.

As her detention continues, Mooney remains confined to a concrete cell with no natural light, no mats, no blankets, and minimal bathroom facilities.

“Every single guard that sees me is like ‘What are you doing here? I don’t understand — you’re Canadian. How are you here?’” she told ABC News.

“One or two months ago, if CBP officers found an issue with a Canadian’s work visa, the typical route taken is revoking the visa and ordering that person to leave the country,” said Neitor. “To detain someone like this would have been considered extreme not long ago, but’s it happening much more frequently nowadays.”

Neitor noted that while there is no limit on how long U.S. immigration authorities can detain a non-U.S. citizen, individuals have the legal right to talk to a lawyer while in detention.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/26376257

“Canada doesn’t allow American Banks to do business in Canada, but their banks flood the American Market. Oh, that seems fair to me, doesn’t it?” Trump wrote in a social media post

CNN and others debunked Trump’s claim a month ago.

“There’s nothing prohibiting American banks from operating here, including having retail branches,” Cristie Ford, a professor at the University of British Columbia’s law school, said in an email in February.

Canada tightly regulates the banking industry, and it requires various government approvals before a foreign-owned bank can open in the country. But U.S. banks have been operating in Canada for well over a century; the Canadian Bankers Association, an industry group, said in a February statement that “there are 16 U.S.-based bank subsidiaries and branches with around C$113 billion in assets currently operating in Canada” and that “U.S. banks now make up approximately half of all foreign bank assets in Canada.”

Tyler Meredith, former head of economic and fiscal policy for Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, noted on social media in February that Bank of America, Wells Fargo, Citigroup, U.S. Bank, JPMorgan, and Northern Trust are among the U.S. banks with current Canadian operations. You can see the others here and here.

Meredith said in an interview that “we take a very careful look at people who want to come into our banking sector, because we consider financial services to be a core asset to Canada and to the Canadian economy” and try hard to avoid the “cascading consequences” the world has seen with bank failures in the U.S