NoneCALGARY, Alberta (AP) — A Ukrainian girls’ hockey team is in Canada for a few days of peace and hockey in an arena that doesn’t have a missile-sized hole in its roof. After 56 hours of travel to Calgary, including a 24-hour bus ride from Dnipro to Warsaw, Poland, that required army escort for a portion of it, the Ukrainian Wings will join Wickfest, Hayley Wickenheiser’s annual girls’ hockey festival, on Thursday. The squad of players aged 11 to 13 was drawn from eight different cities in Ukraine, where sport facilities have been damaged or destroyed since Russia started its invasion in February 2022. “They all have a personal story of something awful happening,” said Wickenheiser. “We give them a week of peace and joy here, and I hope they can carry that with them. “We know full well they’re going back to difficult circumstances. It’s tough that way.” Nine players are from Kharkiv, where pictures show a large hole in the roof of the Saltovskiy Led arena where the girls’ team WHC Panthers once skated. “It was our home ice arena, and we played all our national team championships in this ice arena,” said Kateryna Seredenko, who oversees the Panthers program and is the Wings general manager. Ukraine’s Olympic Committee posted photos and wrote in a Facebook post Sept. 1 that Kharkiv’s Sport Palace, which was home to multiple hockey teams, was also destroyed in an attack on the city. Seredenko says the Wings’ arduous journey to Calgary was worth it because it gives the girls hope. “It’s not a good situation in Ukraine, but when they come here, they can believe that everything will be good, everything will be fine, of course we will win soon and we must play hockey. We can’t stop because we love these girls and we will do everything for them,” she said. “So many girls on this Ukrainian team are future players of the national team.” Wickenheiser, a Hockey Hall of Famer , is the assistant general manager of player development for the Toronto Maple Leafs and a doctor who works emergency room shifts in the Toronto area. The six-time Olympian and four-time gold medalist organized her first Wickfest after the 2010 Winter Games. She’s had teams from India, Mexico and the Czech Republic attend over the last decade and a half, but never a team that ran the Ukrainians’ gauntlet of logistics. The Canadian Partnership for Women and Children’s Health took on the task of arranging visas and paying for the team’s travel. “We care about women and children’s health. Sport is such a symbol. When you see a group of girls coming off the ice all sweaty and having worked hard on the ice, it’s a symbol of a healthy girl,” said chief executive officer Julia Anderson. “That’s a healthy kid that’s able to participate in sport. We really believe if we can get girls there, whether they’re in an active war zone, or here in Canada, those girls will change the world.” The Wings aren’t the first Ukrainians to seek a hockey haven in Canada since the war began. An under-25 men’s team played four games against university squads in early 2023 to prepare for that year’s world university games. Ukrainian teams have also twice played in the Quebec City International Pee-Wee Hockey Tournament. “It’s the first time in Ukrainian history where a girls’ team is coming to Canada to a very good tournament,” Seredenko said. “They can see how they can play in their future. And they can see how it is to play hockey in Canada.” AP sports: https://apnews.com/sports
Thanksgiving Weekend Sports Guide: Your roadmap to NFL matchups, other games, times, oddsAP Race Call: Republican Mariannette Miller-Meeks wins reelection to U.S. House in Iowa's 1st Congressional District
The world's most climate-imperilled nations stormed out of consultations in protest at the deadlocked UN COP29 conference yesterday, as simmering tensions over a hard-fought finance deal erupted into the open. Diplomats from small island nations threatened by rising seas and impoverished African states angrily walked out of a meeting with summit hosts Azerbaijan over a final deal being thrashed out in a Baku sports stadium. "We came here to this COP for a fair deal. We feel that we haven't been heard," said Cedric Schuster, the Samoan chairman of the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS). An unpublished version of the final text circulating in Baku, and seen by AFP, proposes that rich nations raise to $300 billion a year by 2035 their commitment to poorer countries to fight climate change. It is up from $100 billion now provided by wealthy nations under a commitment set to expire. COP29 hosts Azerbaijan intended to put a final draft before 198 nations for adoption or rejection on Saturday evening, a full day after the marathon summit officially ended. Sierra Leone's climate minister Jiwoh Abdulai, whose country is among the world's poorest, said the draft was "effectively a suicide pact for the rest of the world". In a statement, Schuster said AOSIS and the group of Least Developed Countries (LDCs) have found themselves "continuously insulted by the lack of inclusion" at COP29. Schuster said that without an inclusive process, "it becomes very difficult for us to continue our involvement here at COP29". But negotiators from AOSIS, the LDCs and wealthy nations met later with the COP29 presidency. "We're doing our utmost to build bridges with literally everyone," EU climate commissioner Wopke Hoekstra said in a statement. "It is not easy," he said. "There is no alternative to do whatever we can." An earlier offer from rich nations of $250 billion was slammed as offensively low by developing countries, which have demanded much higher sums to build resilience against climate change and cut emissions. UK Energy Secretary Ed Miliband said the revised offer of $300 billion was "a significant scaling up" of the existing pledge by developed nations, which also count the United States, EU and Japan among their ranks. Harried diplomats ran to-and-fro in the stadium near the Caspian Sea searching for common ground. "Hopefully this is the storm before the calm," said US climate envoy John Podesta in the corridors as somebody shouted "shame" in his direction. Panama's negotiator, Juan Carlos Monterrey Gomez, said delegates could not go home without a deal and repeat the failure of COP15 in Copenhagen in 2009. "I'm sad, I'm tired, I'm disheartened, I'm hungry, I'm sleep-deprived, but there is a tiny ray of optimism within me because this cannot become a new Copenhagen," he told reporters. Wealthy nations say it is politically unrealistic to expect more in direct government funding. Donald Trump, a sceptic of both climate change and foreign assistance, returns to the White House in January and a number of other Western countries have seen right-wing backlashes against the green agenda. The draft deal posits a larger overall target of $1.3 trillion per year to cope with rising temperatures and disasters, but most would come from private sources. Ali Mohamed, the Kenyan chair of the African Group of Negotiators, told AFP: "No deal is better than a bad deal." South African environment minister Dion George, however, said: "I think being ambitious at this point is not going to be very useful." "What we are not up for is going backwards or standing still," he said. "We might as well just have stayed at home then." A coalition of more than 300 activist groups accused historic polluters most responsible for climate change of skirting their obligation and urged developing nations to stand firm. A group of developing countries had demanded at least $500 billion, with some saying that increases were less than met the eye due to inflation. Experts commissioned by the United Nations to assess the needs of developing countries said $250 billion was "too low" and by 2035 rich nations should be providing at least $390 billion. The US and EU have wanted newly wealthy emerging economies like China -- the world's largest emitter -- to chip in. China, which remains classified as a developing nation under the UN framework, provides climate assistance but wants to keep doing so on its own voluntary terms. The EU and other countries have also tussled with Saudi Arabia over including strong language on moving away from fossil fuels, which negotiators say the oil-producing country has resisted. "We will not allow the most vulnerable, especially the small island states, to be ripped off by the new, few rich fossil fuel emitters," said German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock.
Thanksgiving Weekend Sports Guide: Your roadmap to NFL matchups, other games, times, odds
Dayforce CEO David Ossip sells $68.3 million in stockHC suspends waqf board’s powerto issue marriage certificatesIn the remotest reaches of Alaska, there’s no relying on DoorDash to have Thanksgiving dinner — or any dinner — delivered. But some residents living well off the grid nevertheless have turkeys this holiday, thanks to the Alaska Turkey Bomb. For the third straight year, a resident named Esther Keim has been flying low and slow in a small plane over rural parts of south-central Alaska, dropping frozen turkeys to those who can't simply run out to the grocery store. 24/7 San Diego news stream: Watch NBC 7 free wherever you are Alaska is mostly wilderness, with only about 20% of it accessible by road. In winter, many who live in remote areas rely on small planes or snowmobiles to travel any distance, and frozen rivers can act as makeshift roads. When Keim was growing up on an Alaska homestead , a family friend would airdrop turkeys to her family and others nearby for the holidays. Other times, the pilot would deliver newspapers, sometimes with a pack of gum inside for Keim. Her family moved to more urban Alaska nearly 25 years ago but still has the homestead. Using a small plane she had rebuilt with her father, Keim launched her turkey delivery mission a few years back after learning of a family living off the land nearby who had little for Thanksgiving dinner. “They were telling me that a squirrel for dinner did not split very far between three people," Keim recalled. “At that moment, I thought ... ‘I’m going to airdrop them a turkey.'” She decided not to stop there. Her effort has grown by word of mouth and by social media posts. This year, she's delivering 32 frozen turkeys to people living year-round in cabins where there are no roads. Thanksgiving, Latino style: 5 families share how they prepare turkey and side dishes with a twist Which stores will be open and which will be closed on Thanksgiving this year? All but two had been delivered by Tuesday, with delivery plans for the last two birds thwarted by Alaska’s unpredictable weather. Among the beneficiaries are Dave and Christina Luce, who live on the Yentna River about 45 miles (72 kilometers) northwest of Anchorage. They have stunning mountain views in every direction, including North America's tallest mountain, Denali, directly to the north. But in the winter it's a 90-minute snowmobile ride to the nearest town, which they do about once a month. “I’m 80 years old now, so we make fewer and fewer trips," Dave Luce said. “The adventure has sort of gone out of it.” They've known Keim since she was little. The 12-pound (5.44-kilogram) turkey she delivered will provide more than enough for them and a few neighbors. “It makes a great Thanksgiving,” Dave Luce said. “She’s been a real sweetheart, and she’s been a real good friend.” Keim makes 30 to 40 turkey deliveries yearly, flying as far as 100 miles (161 kilometers) from her base north of Anchorage toward Denali's foothills. Sometimes she enlists the help of a “turkey dropper” to ride along and toss the birds out. Other times, she’s the one dropping turkeys while her friend Heidi Hastings pilots her own plane. Keim buys about 20 turkeys at a time, with the help of donations, usually by people reaching out to her through Facebook. She wraps them in plastic garbage bags and lets them sit in the bed of her pickup until she can arrange a flight. “Luckily it’s cold in Alaska, so I don’t have to worry about freezers,” she said. She contacts families on social media to let them know of impending deliveries, and then they buzz the house so the homeowners will come outside. “We won’t drop the turkey until we see them come out of the house or the cabin, because if they don’t see it fall, they’re not going to know where to look,” she said. It can be especially difficult to find the turkey if there’s deep snow. A turkey was once missing for five days before it was found, but the only casualty so far has been a lost ham, Keim said. Keim prefers to drop the turkey on a frozen lake if possible so it's easy to locate. “As far as precision and hitting our target, I am definitely not the best aim,” she joked. “I’ve gotten better, but I have never hit a house, a building, person or dog.” Her reward is the great responses she gets from families, some who record her dropping the turkeys and send her videos and texts of appreciation. “They just think it’s so awesome that we throw these things out of the plane,” Keim said. Ultimately, she hopes to set up a nonprofit organization to solicit more donations and reach people across a bigger swath of the state. And it doesn’t have to stop at turkeys. “There’s so many kids out in the villages," she said. “It would be cool to maybe add a stuffed animal or something they can hold.” ___ Bohrer reported from Juneau, Alaska.
Australian Senate begins debate on world-first social media ban for children under 16