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  • After quake, Syrian schools silent as teachers, students perish

    After quake, Syrian schools silent as teachers, students perish

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    JANDARIS, Syria, Feb 12 (Reuters) – An eerie silence lay over the courtyard of Ramadan al-Suleiman’s nursery in northern Syria on Sunday as he picked his way through smashed cinderblocks, twisted metal and broken plastic swings.

    The modest nursery in the town of Jandaris – about 70 km (44 miles) from the city of Aleppo – once hosted 100 toddlers, whose dusty pictures now lay strewn among the debris caused by Monday’s devastating earthquake. Some of those children and teachers would not be coming back, Suleiman said.

    “We lost two of the female teachers from the important cadres at the school. We lost seven or eight students that we know of,” he told Reuters.

    They were among more than 2,600 people reported so far to have died in the earthquake in opposition-held parts of northern Syria. More than 3,500 were killed across Syria in total and nearly 30,000 in Turkey.

    Children’s education in Syria was already hard hit by the war that has raged since 2011. For years, schools would regularly shut because of fighting, mortar fire by rebel groups or air strikes by the Syrian government or Russia.

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    The earthquake destroyed more than 115 schools in Syria and damaged hundreds more, according to a United Nations update published Saturday.

    More than 100 others were being used as makeshift shelters to host thousands displaced by the earthquake, which brought apartment blocks and even tiny rural homes crashing down on residents’ heads.

    Suleiman has been trying to track down some of the nursery children from whose families he has not heard.

    “I went around to buildings where I know some of the students live – and 90% of them were destroyed. There are some pupils that I suspect are dead because we cannot reach their families at all,” he said.

    Jandaris was particularly devastated, with many concrete buildings pulverised.

    Rescuers across Syria, including in the north, have been pulling young children out from under the rubble – some of them miraculously alive even almost a week after the quake, but orphaned.

    Others did not make it.

    Mohammad Hassan said he still doesn’t know what happened to his seven-year-old daughter Lafeen’s friends and classmates.

    “We asked around and discovered that one of her teachers died, may God bless her soul,” Hassan told Reuters as Lafeen played quietly in his lap.

    “She is shocked, she asks me to go see if something happened to the kindergarten. I’m telling her nothing happened and I will take you there once it reopens.”

    Reporting by Khalil Ashawi; Writing by Maya Gebeily
    Editing by Raissa Kasolowsky

    Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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  • Virginia school official knew 6-year-old who shot teacher may have had gun

    Virginia school official knew 6-year-old who shot teacher may have had gun

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    Jan 13 (Reuters) – At least one administrator at the Virginia school where a 6-year-old boy shot a teacher last week was aware the boy may have had a gun, but no weapon was found when the boy’s backpack was searched before the shooting, school officials said on Friday.

    Superintendent George Parker told parents at Rickneck Elementary School during a virtual meeting on Thursday that a school administrator learned the boy may have had a gun, according to Michelle Price, a spokeswoman for Newport News Public Schools. The information was first reported by Virginia’s WAVY TV.

    The administrator has not been identified nor is it clear exactly how they learned the boy may have had a gun.

    Once alerted, school officials searched the boy’s backpack, but did not find the gun. Why the gun was not found at that time has not been explained. The shooting took place about 2-1/2 hours after the boy’s backpack was searched.

    Abigail Zwerner, a 25-year-old teacher, was shot a week ago by the young student. Police hailed the teacher as a hero earlier this week for managing to evacuate students from her classroom even after she was shot. Police on Friday said Zwerner’s last known condition was stable.

    The boy who shot Zwerner was in the custody of the Newport News Department of Human Services, police said.

    Police said the investigation is continuing and once complete, they will present findings to the Commonwealth’s Attorney in Newport News, who would make any decision regarding possible charges against the boy’s mother.

    The mother legally purchased the 9 mm Taurus handgun, police have said, but could face misdemeanor charges if it’s found she did not properly secure the weapon in her home.

    The boy took the handgun from his home, placed it in his backpack and removed it while Zwerner was teaching class, Newport News Police Chief Steve Drew said earlier this week. The boy pointed the gun at the teacher and fired once. Zwerner was shot through the hand and into the chest.

    After the shot, another woman who works at the school rushed into the classroom and held the boy down while Zwerner escorted the estimated 16 to 20 students out, Drew said. When police arrived, they found the gun on the floor.

    Parker previously told reporters the school was unprepared for a 6-year-old bringing a gun to school and firing it, saying this marked only the third time since 1970 that a child aged 6 or younger had discharged a weapon at a U.S. school.

    The Newport News school board on Thursday announced that metal detectors would be installed in every school in the city following the shooting.

    Reporting by Brad Brooks in Lubbock, Texas; Editing by Cynthia Osterman

    Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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  • Canadians clean up after Fiona sweeps homes out to sea; one dead

    Canadians clean up after Fiona sweeps homes out to sea; one dead

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    PORT AUX BASQUES, Newfoundland, Sept 25 (Reuters) – It will take several months for Canada to restore critical infrastructure after the powerful storm Fiona left an “unprecedented” trail of destruction, officials said on Sunday, as crews fanned out in five provinces to restore power and clean up fallen trees and debris.

    One 73-year-old woman died during the storm in Port aux Basques, one of the hardest hit towns on the southwest tip of Newfoundland with just over 4,000 residents, police said.

    “The woman was last seen inside (her) residence just moments before a wave struck the home, tearing away a portion of the basement,” police said earlier. The coast guard and local rescuers recovered her body from the ocean on Sunday afternoon, according to a statement.

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    Port aux Basques is “like a complete war zone,” said Brian Button, mayor of Port aux Basques. More than 20 homes were destroyed and more than 200 people need shelter. The cost of damages “is in the millions (of dollars) here now,” Button said in an interview.

    “We’re going to be months rebuilding. I think months is a conservative estimate for some of these people,” Rosalyn Roy, a resident of Port aux Basques, told the Canadian Broadcasting Corp.

    Fiona slammed into eastern Canada on Saturday, forcing evacuations as wind gusts reached up to 170 km per hour (106 miles per hour) and the storm surge swallowed up homes on the coastline.

    While the full scale of Fiona’s devastation is not immediately clear, the storm could prove to be one of Canada’s costliest natural disasters.

    Scientists have not yet determined whether climate change influenced Fiona, but in general the warming of the planet is making hurricanes wetter, windier and altogether more intense.

    Canada’s federal government is sending in the armed forces on Sunday to help clear fallen trees and debris, which will in turn open the way for crews to restore power, Emergency Preparedness Minister Bill Blair told Reuters.

    The province of Nova Scotia requested the troops and machinery to clear debris Saturday, “and we said yes, and so they’re being deployed today,” Blair said.

    On Sunday, Prince Edward Island (PEI) and Newfoundland and Labrador also requested federal support and troops are going to be sent, Blair said. About 100 troops are heading to each of the three provinces, Defense Minister Anita Anand told reporters.

    RCMP officers observe the destruction after the arrival of Hurricane Fiona in Port Aux Basques, Newfoundland, Canada September 25, 2022. REUTERS/John Morris

    The Canadian Hurricane Centre estimated that Fiona was the lowest-pressured storm to make landfall on record in Canada.

    In 2019, Dorian hit the region around Halifax, Nova Scotia, blowing down a construction crane and knocking out power. Fiona, on the other hand, appears to have caused major damage across at least five provinces.

    “The scale of what we’re dealing with, I think it’s unprecedented,” Blair said on Sunday.

    “There is going to be… several months’ work in restoring some of the critical infrastructure – buildings and homes, rooftops that have been blown off community centers and schools,” he said.

    Hundreds of thousands of residents across Nova Scotia, PEI, Newfoundland, Quebec and New Brunswick remained without power on Sunday. Blair said hundreds of utility crews had already been deployed to restore power, including some from the United States.

    In Nova Scotia, police urged people to stop going for fast food because drive-thru lines “are blocking roadways, which is impeding recovery efforts” and the situation is prompting calls to police dispatchers “who are already handling very high call volumes”, according to a statement on Twitter.

    In PEI there were long lines at gas stations as many had to fill generators, and several communities were told to boil water before drinking because water purification systems were offline.

    Officials warned on Sunday that in some cases it would take weeks before essential services are fully restored.

    The storm also severely damaged fishing harbors in Atlantic Canada, which could hurt the country’s C$3.2 billion lobster industry, unless it is fully restored before the season kicks off in few weeks.

    “Those fishers have a very immediate need to be able to access their livelihood once the storm passes,” Dominic LeBlanc, minister of intergovernmental affairs of Canada, said on Saturday.

    ($1 = 1.3589 Canadian dollars)

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    Reporting John Morris in Stephenville; Additional reporting by Steve Scherer in Ottawa, Denny Thomas in Toronto, and Eric Martyn in Halifax; Writing by Steve Scherer; Editing by Daniel Wallis, Lisa Shumaker and Diane Craft

    Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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