Much of Canada spent Saturday either shivering in record-setting frigid temperatures or digging out of a messy winter storm as weather warnings remained in place from the West Coast to the Maritimes.

On the Prairies, high demand for electricity due to the extreme cold prompted the Alberta Electric Systems Operator to issue grid alerts Friday and Saturday, and Utilities Minister Nathan Neudorf warned there was a high risk of rotating outages Saturday night.

“We are calling on all Albertans to reduce their electric demand immediately to essentials only,” Neudorf said in

A gay employee of Global Affairs Canada posted in China, who travelled to the U.S. for the birth of his child through surrogacy, will have those expenses covered after a tribunal ruling.

The public service labour board ruled in August it would be discriminatory if Ottawa does not compensate travel expenses for any diplomat in a same-sex couple attending a surrogacy birth.

“The reality is we attract all sorts of different people now, and we have to be more agile at helping people who have all sorts of different

A gay employee of Global Affairs Canada posted in China, who travelled to the U.S. for the birth of his child through surrogacy, will have those expenses covered after a tribunal ruling.

The public service labour board ruled in August it would be discriminatory if Ottawa does not compensate travel expenses for any diplomat in a same-sex couple attending a surrogacy birth.

“The reality is we attract all sorts of different people now, and we have to be more agile at helping people who have all sorts of different

SRINAGAR, India (AP) — A prolonged dry spell is sweeping across the Indian-controlled portion of Kashmir during the harshest phase of winter, leaving many people sick and farmers worried about impending water shortages.

Daytime temperatures have been high­ for about a month now, sometimes at least 6 degrees Celsius (10 degrees Fahrenheit) above the norm, according to Indian meteorological officials. The daytime temperatures usually hover around 5 Celsius (41 Fahrenheit) during this harsh winter period.

Nights, however, continue to be

ISTANBUL (AP) — Turkey carried out airstrikes targeting Kurdish militants in neighboring Iraq and Syria on Saturday, the Turkish Defense Ministry said, coming a day after an in Iraq killed nine Turkish soldiers.

Turkey often launches it believes to be affiliated with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, a banned Kurdish separatist group that has waged an insurgency against Turkey since the 1980s.

The defense ministry said that aircraft struck targets in Metina, Hakurk, Gara and Qandil in northern Iraq, but didn’t

BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) — The death toll of a mudslide in western Colombia rose to 34 on Saturday, authorities said.

The mudslide struck a busy municipal road Friday in a mountainous area connecting the cities of Quibdo and Medellin.

The National Disaster Risk Management Unit had said initially in a statement that at least 18 people were killed. The agency also said at least 35 injured people were taken to hospitals.

The new death toll was reported by the Chocó Governor’s Office, where a unified

RAFAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — For a few hours every day or night, Dr. Suhaib Alhamss tries to sleep on a thin mattress in an operating room. He swings in and out of half-consciousness, both too tired to open his eyes and too tense to let go. Thunderous shellfire often rattles the windows of the hospital he directs in the southern .

But the worst sounds, Alhamss said, come from : the cries of tiny children with no parents and enormous wounds. The panicked screams of patients

WASHINGTON (AP) — In a new twist to the fight over access, congressional Republicans are trying to block a Biden administration that they say will cut off millions of dollars to anti-abortion counseling centers.

The rule would prohibit states from sending earmarked for needy Americans to so-called “crisis pregnancy centers,” which counsel against abortions. At stake are millions of dollars in federal funds that currently flow to the organizations through the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program, a block grant program created in 1

It has become a daily ritual.

Every morning, before she’s even out of her pajamas, Rachel Goldberg-Polin tears a piece of masking tape off the roll, grabs a marking pen and in thick black strokes writes down the number of days her son, Hersh, has been by militants. Then she sticks the tape to her chest.

“I find it so remarkable how nauseating it is every single time,’’ she said. “And it’s good. I don’t want to