No criminal charges will be brought against Matt Petgrave, the Canadian hockey player involved in a tragic on-ice accident that led to the death of fellow player Adam Johnson.

The Crown Prosecution Service confirmed Petgrave would not face charges on Tuesday, April 29, with Deputy Chief Crown Prosecutor Michael Quinn saying, “there is not a realistic prospect of conviction for any criminal offense.”

“This was a shocking and deeply upsetting incident,” Quinn said. “The CPS and South Yorkshire Police have worked closely together to determine whether any criminal charges should be brought against the other ice hockey player involved… Our thoughts remain with the family and friends of Adam Johnson.”

The Peace Corps is offering staff a second “fork in the road” buyout, according to a source familiar with the matter. Allison Greene, the chief executive of Peace Corps, sent an email to staff on Monday with an update about the “department of government efficiency” (Doge) assessment of the agency.

Greene said to expect “significant restructuring efforts” at Peace Corps headquarters, according to the email seen by the Guardian. Starting on 28 April and going through 6 May, direct hire and expert staff are being offered a second deferred resignation program, what Elon Musk’s Doge has referred to as a “fork in the road” buyout. Greene referred to this offer as “DRP 2.0”.

Eligible staff will hear from human resources and “are strongly encouraged to consider this option”, Greene wrote. The offer applies to employees both domestically and overseas.

An Irish woman who has lived legally in the US for four decades has been detained by immigration officials for the last week because of a criminal record dating back almost 20 years.

Cliona Ward, 54, was detained at San Francisco airport on 21 April after returning from Ireland to visit her sick father and is being held at an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) facility in Tacoma, Washington.

Ward holds a green card but has convictions for drug possession from 2007 and 2008, which she believed had been expunged, her family said.

There was the house in Houston owned by her grandmother, Crystal Holmes. Then, after Holmes lost her Southwest Airlines job and the house, there was the trio of apartments in the suburbs — and three evictions. Then another rental, and another eviction. Then motels and her uncle’s one-bedroom apartment, where Mackenzie and her grandmother slept on an inflatable mattress. Finally, Crystal Holmes secured a spot in a women’s shelter, so the two would no longer have to sleep on the floor.

With nearly every move came a new school, a new set of classmates, and new lessons to catch up on. Mackenzie only has one friend she’s known longer than a year, and she didn’t receive testing or a diagnosis for dyslexia until this year. She would often miss long stretches of class in between schools.

Schoolchildren threatened with eviction are more likely to end up in another district or transfer to another school, often one with less funding, more poverty and lower test scores. They’re more likely to miss school, and those who end up transferring are suspended more often. That’s according to an analysis from the Eviction Lab at Princeton University, published in Sociology of Education, a peer-reviewed journal, and shared exclusively with The Associated Press’ Education Reporting Network.

A Palestinian diplomat told the United Nations’ top court on Monday that Israel is killing and displacing civilians and targeting aid workers in Gaza, in a case that Israel criticized as part of its “systematic persecution and delegitimization.”

While Israel was not in court, Foreign Minister Gideon Saar hit back at the case.

“I accuse UNRWA, I accuse the U.N., I accuse the secretary-general and I accuse all those that weaponized international law and its institutions in order to deprive the most attacked country in the world, Israel, of its most basic right to defend itself,” he told a news conference in Jerusalem. He said the court hearing was part of a “systematic persecution and delegitimization” of his country.

Prime Minister Mark Carney’s Liberals won a federal election Monday, the country’s public broadcaster, the CBC, projected, an extraordinary comeback that was fueled in part by President Donald Trump’s tariff policies and attacks on Canada.

Just months ago, Carney’s party was headed for a potentially historic drubbing. It was not yet clear whether the Liberals would rule a minority or majority government as votes continued to be counted.

Amid the U.S. president’s trade war and threats to annex its northern neighbor, voters flocked to Carney — a political novice, who led the Bank of Canada during the global financial crisis and the Bank of England during Brexit. He pitched himself as a steady hand at a destabilizing time.

It appears Elections Canada’s website is experiencing some technical issues this evening, just as polls in the 45th Canadian federal general election are beginning to come to a full close across the country.

As of the time of writing, voting stations are still open in British Columbia, Alberta, parts of Nunavut, the Northwest Territories, and the Yukon. Polling stations in B.C. will be the last to close at 7 p.m. PDT.

The issues with the website first began at approximately 4 p.m. PDT.

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Elon Musk and his companies face at least $2.37bn in legal exposure from federal investigations, litigation and regulatory oversight, according to a new report from Senate Democrats. The report attempts to put a number to Musk’s many conflicts of interest through his work with his so-called “department of government efficiency” (Doge), warning that he may seek to use his influence to avoid legal liability.

The report, which was published on Monday by Democratic members of the Senate homeland security committee’s permanent subcommittee on investigations, looked at 65 actual or potential actions against Musk across 11 separate agencies. Investigators calculated the financial liabilities Musk and his companies, such as Tesla, SpaceX and Neuralink, may face in 45 of those actions.

Although the report gives a total estimated amount, it also states that the $2bn-plus figure does not include how much Musk could avoid from investigations that the Trump administration declines to launch. It also excludes the potential contracts, such as communications deals with his Starlink satellite internet service, that Musk’s companies could gain because of his role in the administration.

“While the $2.37 billion figure represents a credible, conservative estimate, it drastically understates the true benefit Mr Musk may gain from legal risk avoidance alone as a result of his position in government,” the report states.

According to provincial data, 193 Albertans have died due to influenza so far this season, surpassing last year's total of 175.

That's the highest death toll since at least 2009.

The previous major peak, in 2022-23, was 123 flu deaths.

"I'm concerned now that after seeing this trend now for three years that this is becoming the new normal," said Craig Jenne, a professor in the department of microbiology, immunology and infectious diseases at the University of Calgary.

UN and Palestinian representatives at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) accused Israel of breaking international law by refusing to let aid into Gaza, on the first day of hearings about Israel's obligations to facilitate aid deliveries.

Since March 2, Israel has completely cut off all supplies to the 2.3 million residents of the Gaza Strip, and food stockpiled during a ceasefire at the start of the year has all but run out.

At the opening of the hearings at the United Nations' top court, the UN's legal counsel said Israel had a clear obligation as an occupying force to allow and facilitate humanitarian aid for the people in Gaza.

***This is a live reporting of what is happening in the courtroom right now.

Crown wraps opening statement

Donkers wraps up her statement by saying there may be moments when the jury will find it difficult to put themselves in E.M.’s shoes.

She also tells the jury: “Be vigilant, and do not allow yourself to be tempted by the myths and stereotypes that are pervasive in society about how victims of sexual assault should behave.

“What jury service demands of you is an assessment of the evidence based only on what the law is, not what you thought the law was, or what you think it should be or what popular media may have led you to think.”

When President Donald Trump chose Ed Martin, the Missouri lawyer and political operative, to be the top U.S. attorney for Washington, D.C., the decision came as a shock to current and former federal prosecutors as well as outside legal experts. Martin had no prosecutorial experience. He was best known as a conservative activist, the former right-hand man to influential anti-feminist icon Phyllis Schlafly and a loyal Trump surrogate.

Since taking charge of the office in January, Martin has launched controversial investigations, rushed to defend Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency and vowed to change how his office prosecutes crime in the District of Columbia.

His actions have been met with fierce pushback from Democratic lawmakers, watchdog groups and legal experts. There have been at least four disciplinary complaints filed against him with the D.C. and Missouri bars. One of the D.C. complaints has been dismissed; the other three appear to be pending. If Martin has responded to the complaints, his statements have not been made public.

It's hard to believe that having enough water is an issue at Banditry Cider in Gibsons, B.C. The craft cidery is on a rural property with rows of apple trees, a huge pond filled with ducks, and as James Armstrong surveys the place on a rainy spring day, his boots are covered in mud.

"I assumed because it was Gibsons and we bought this place in the winter, I was like, 'it's always wet here.' And I grew up here and there were never water issues."

In five of the last eight summers, the Sunshine Coast Regional District (SCRD) has implemented stage 4 watering restrictions, the highest level, which ban all outdoor water use. That means no watering lawns or gardens or washing cars. Since 2021, farms have been given a two-week grace period once those restrictions begin, after which they can't use municipal water on their crops.

His advice to other municipalities is simple.

"It's easy to stick your head in the sand and tout and praise and brag about your zero to two per cent [property] tax increases. But the fact of the matter is, with doing that, you're just kicking the can down the road."

Children in Quebec can have more than two parents, according to a Superior Court decision that now gives the provincial government 12 months to amend the Civil Code to legally recognize this type of family structure.

In a ruling issued on Thursday, Judge Andres C. Garin examined complaints from two separate cases.

The plaintiffs in those cases were La Coalition des familles LGBT+ — a group that seeks to have all families recognized regardless of how they're formed — as well as three families who were unable to put the names of three parents on their children's birth certificates.

The judge determined that the Civil Code's inability to legally recognize multi-parent families violates the complainants' Canadian Charter right to equality.

The wood turtle came to live at the Museum of Natural History in Halifax last September.

Unlike most turtles, Root is missing his right front foot.

"Because one leg is essentially shorter than the other one, we found that he was kind of clunking his shell down," McKinnon says. "There was some wear on the shell and we didn't want it to get worse, so he needed something to lift him up."

The first incarnation used medical adhesive tape and a bandage to attach some wheels, but staff didn't want to have to stick something to his shell every time he went out for his constitutional. So Biesterfeld came up with the idea of using a removable dog harness along with the Lego platform and wheels.

"Now when I snap his harness on, it's like when he hears that snap, he's ready to go," says Biesterfeld.

A doctor running a network of addiction clinics across Ontario, including an Ottawa location that offers safer opioid supply, is billing public insurance about $2.5 million per year.

Dr. Suman Koka is the sole officer and director of Northwood Recovery, which has locations in North York, Hamilton and Manitoulin Island. It operates under the name Recovery North in Sudbury, Timmins and Sault Ste. Marie.

Neighbours in both Hintonburg and Chinatown have criticized Koka for prescribing opioid medications to fentanyl users. They say his patients are trading the prescription drugs on the street to get harder substances, attracting dealers and crime to the area.

City councillors representing both neighbourhoods have urged Northwood Recovery to change its operations or shut down.

As pressure grows to get artificial colors out of the U.S. food supply, the shift may well start at Abby Tampow’s laboratory desk.

Tampow is part of the team at Sensient Technologies Corp., one of the world’s largest dyemakers, that is rushing to help the salad dressing manufacturer — along with thousands of other American businesses — meet demands to overhaul colors used to brighten products from cereals to sports drinks.

“Most of our customers have decided that this is finally the time when they’re going to make that switch to a natural color,” said Dave Gebhardt, Sensient’s senior technical director. He joined a recent tour of the Sensient Colors factory in a north St. Louis neighborhood.

Last week, U.S. health officials announced plans to persuade food companies to voluntarily eliminate petroleum-based artificial dyes by the end of 2026.

Donald Trump’s private golf resort in South Florida will next week host one of the world’s leading purveyors of chlorine dioxide, a potentially life-threatening form of industrial bleach that is claimed without evidence to be a cure for cancer, Covid and autism.

Andreas Kalcker is among 50 listed speakers at the “Truth Seekers Conference”, a two-day event opening on Thursday at the US president’s resort, Trump National Doral Miami. The event features several anti-vaxxers and other conspiracy theorists who have been brought together by the far-right commentator Charlie Ward.

Kalcker, a German national thought to be living in Switzerland, markets the bleach under the brand name “CDS”, for chlorine dioxide solution. His online brochures claim that the toxic chemical, which he admits is a disinfectant, can “eliminate pathogens” that cause disease.

He boasts it is “possibly the greatest medical discovery of the last 100 years”.

Consuming large amounts of ultra-processed food (UPF) increases the risk of an early death, according to a international study that has reignited calls for a crackdown on UPF.

Each 10% extra intake of UPF, such as bread, cakes and ready meals, increases someone’s risk of dying before they reach 75 by 3%, according to research in countries including the US and England.

UPF is so damaging to health that it is implicated in as many as one in seven of all premature deaths that occur in some countries, according to a paper in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine.

They are associated with 124,107 early deaths in the US a year and 17,781 deaths every year in England, the review of dietary and mortality data from eight countries found.

The French government will propose combining or eliminating a third of government agencies by the end of the year in a bid to save money, the public accounts minister said on Sunday.

"We will, by the end of the year, propose in the budget that a third of state-backed agencies and operators that are not universities are merged or eliminated," Amelie de Montchalin, the public accounts minister, said in an interview with French broadcaster CNews/Europe 1.

Prime Minister Francois Bayrou's government has sought to cut the public sector budget deficit from 5.4% of economic output this year to 3%, the European Union's ceiling, in 2029.