rays: Still, he's confident the budget-minded club is positioned to be more competitive in 2017, according to Brandon Sun. The more I think about it, I like where we are, the 31-year-old said, embracing the team's underdog status. The three-time All-Star third baseman who's coming off one of the most productive seasons of his career concedes he wasn't a big fan of every move the Rays made this off-season. In some of the years where we've been projected to be nothing, we've had some of our best years, Longoria added. The Rays made the playoffs four of six seasons from 2008 to 2013 before gradually descending to the bottom of one of baseball's deepest divisions. And the years you've got a target on your back, or you're expected to play well or win 10 or 15 more games than the previous year, it's been tough. (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.

john bursch: The court is considering the case of Jae Lee, a South Korean immigrant who was facing drug charges, according to Brandon Sun. Lee pleaded guilty after his lawyer mistakenly assured him a conviction would not lead to deportation. The justices seemed divided during an argument about what to do in cases in which the evidence against criminal defendants is strong and the chances of acquittal by a jury are remote. The Trump administration is arguing the outcome at trial would have been the same. John Bursch, Lee's lawyer, told the court that his client would have taken his chances at trial or had his lawyer seek a better plea deal that might allow him to remain in the United States. The administration has pledged to increase deportations, with a focus on immigrants who have been convicted of crimes. (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.

northeast paris: Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said China had summoned a representative of the French embassy in Beijing Tuesday and urged French officials to get to the bottom of the incident as soon as possible, according to Brandon Sun. Chinese authorities hope that Chinese nationals in France can express their wishes and demands in a reasonable way, Hua said. Protesters gathered Tuesday in northeast Paris for a second day of demonstrations over the fatal shooting of a Chinese man in his apartment, and police launched an internal investigation into a death that took on diplomatic implications. Residents and police gave conflicting accounts of what happened before the man was shot to death by police on Sunday evening. Rumours circulated among Chinese immigrants that 56-year-old Shaoyo Liu was in front of his children while cutting up fish with scissors and had not hurt anyone. Police said an officer fired in self-defence during a raid after the man wounded an officer with a bladed weapon. (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.

sanctuary cities: As is the case in several sanctuary cities, they promised to continue blocking co-operation between city police departments and federal immigration authorities, according to Brandon Sun. They also vowed to prevent federal agents from accessing their schools and school records, and they openly contemplated employing cities' rarely-used oversight and subpoena powers to investigate federal immigration practices. We are going to become this administration's worst nightmare, New York City Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito said Monday during a gathering of municipal officials from urban centres such as San Francisco, Seattle, Denver, Chicago and Philadelphia. The defiance that filled the New York City conference clashed with pointed warnings from the White House's West Wing, where Attorney General Jeff Sessions issued a dire warning to urban leaders who embrace policies that help protect immigrants in the country illegally from deportation. He said the Trump White House could withhold or claw back funding from any city that wilfully violates immigration law. Such policies, Sessions said, endanger the lives of every American and violate federal law. (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.

canadian singer: The Canadian Press By Ben Rayner Pop Music Critic Mon., March 27, 2017 Nelly Furtado has an admirable track record of doing whatever Nelly Furtado isn't supposed to be doing at a given moment, according to Toronto Star. She followed up a 2003 debut album, Whoa, Nelly!, certified platinum or better in territories spanning three continents, with an earnestly multicultural big-budget folk-pop followup, Folklore, that contained nothing remotely resembling I'm Like a Bird. The Canadian singer says her new album The Ride is her most raw work to date. Then she followed that up with Loose, a sexy, au courant club record produced by Timbaland that had some fans worrying about a sellout and which subsequently moved 12 million copies worldwide on the back of monster singles like Maneater and Promiscuous to become her biggest album to date. Now, after a five-year layoff following 2012's clubby-again The Spirit Indestructible during which she sought escape from the music industry in pottery and playwriting classes and other art projects, the 38-year-old has teamed up with unlikely producer John Congleton an incredibly busy chap whose exhaustive resum includes records by such indie-rock stalwarts as Spoon, Explosions in the Sky, Sleater-Kinney, the War on Drugs and St. The logical thing for a Portuguese-Canadian gal from Toronto via Victoria to do next Why, a Spanish-language album entitled Mi Plan, of course. (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.

christopher kochland: Tyler Anbinder's City of Dream The 400-Year Epic History of Immigrant New York received the 10,000 Mark Lynton History Prize, according to The Chronicle Herald. And Christopher Leonard's Kochland won the 25,000 Lukas Work-in-Progress Award, which helps authors finish a significant work. Prize officials told The Associated Press on Monday that Gary Younge's Another Day in the Death of America A Chronicle of Ten Short Lives won the 10,000 J. Anthony Lukas Book Prize for combining literary excellence and social concern. Leonard's book is under contract with Simon & Schuster. Previous winners of Lukas prizes, established in 1998, include Robert Caro, Isabel Wilkerson and Lawrence Wright. All three awards are presented by the Lukas Prize Project, named for the late author and investigative journalist and co-administered by the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism and the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard. (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.

countries: A main cause of these and other ills is the failure of governments to provide for the health, education and welfare of their citizens, according to Hamilton Spectator. El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras the countries that accounted last year for most apprehensions at the U.S. southern border are poor. Record-setting homicide rates and lack of economic opportunity plague much of the region. Even so, they could make far better use of the resources they do have. Saddled with some of the world's highest rates of poverty and inequality, these countries gather relatively little in tax. For this to happen, they need to reform their approach to taxes and public spending. (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.

emmett macfarlane: Conservative leadership candidate Kevin O'Leary speaks in Burlington, Ont., on March 5, 2017, according to Huffington Post Canada. Photo Christopher Katsarov/The Canadian Press O'Leary released a video Monday morning criticizing the Liberal government's approach to refugee claimants who, he said, are exploiting a loophole in the Safe Third Country Agreement between Canada and the United States. Emmett Macfarlane, a professor of political science at the University of Waterloo, sounded the alarm over O'Leary's musings about using the controversial legislative tool to help curb a growing problem with asylum seekers crossing the Canada-U.S. border. The 2004 agreement stipulates asylum seekers must make their claim at the first country in which they arrive, but that only applies at official border crossings. The Mounties have arrested nearly half as many border crossers this year 1,134 as were apprehended in 2016, according to recent figures. Asylum seekers who cross between official points are arrested by the RCMP but, as per Canada's obligations under the UN Convention of Refugees, are still entitled to go through a claims process. (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.

firearm injuries: Three-quarters are unintentional, so these are accidents that happen, and about 25 per cent are intentional or assault,'' said senior author Dr, according to Huffington Post Canada. Astrid Guttmann, a pediatrician at Toronto's Hospital for Sick Children. Their study, published Monday in the Canadian Medical Association Journal, found there were 355 firearm injuries on average each year among children and youth, with about 23 to 25 or seven per cent resulting in death. When the researchers looked at provincial hospital emergency room records for gun-related injuries, they found Canadian-born youth, particularly males, had the highest rates of unintentional firearm injury 12 per 100,000 people versus about seven per 100,000 for immigrant males. But when it came to firearm injuries due to assault, immigrants and refugees were at much higher risk than their non-immigrant counterparts. A study published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal has found that nearly every day in Ontario, a young person is injured by a gun. (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.

firearm: Canadian-born males suffered 12.4 such injuries per 100,000 people, 72 per cent higher than the 7.2 among immigrant males between 2008 and 2012, during which almost 1,800 firearm injuries were reported among children and youth in the province, according to Hamilton Spectator. However, the risk of being a victim of intentional firearm assault is 43 per cent higher for refugees, at 4.7 per 100,000 people, than for non-refugees 2.4 per 100,000 people said the study published Monday in the Canadian Medical Association Journal. Based on government health and immigration databases, a team of Toronto researchers found Canadian-born youth, particularly males, have the higher rates of unintentional firearm injuries compared to immigrant youth. Also, immigrant children and youth from Africa are almost three times as likely, and those from Central America are more than four times as likely to be a victim of such targeted firearm assault than their Canadian-born counterparts, said the study by the Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences ICES and Toronto's Hospital for Sick Children. Natasha Saunders, a pediatrician and associate scientist at Sick Kids. A child or youth injured by a gun each day in this province is staggering, said the study's lead author, Dr. (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.

francisco j: Francisco J. Rodriguez Dominguez was picked up at his home by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, immigration lawyer Stephen Manning said, according to Metro News. The leader of an immigrant rights group said the agency detained him because he has a misdemeanour for DUI, but officials with the agency did not return a newspaper's call for comment. A 25-year-old man who had been allowed to stay in the U.S. because he was brought illegally into the country as a child was detained Sunday by immigration agents, activists said. Rodriguez Dominguez arrived in the U.S. from Mexico when he was 5 years old, the Oregon chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union said in a statement. Rodriguez Dominguez helps run a food pantry at the Latino Network, a community organization, and coaches a soccer team at an elementary school, the ACLU said. He has lived in the Portland area since then, the ACLU said. (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.

gunshot injuries: Natasha Saunders, lead author of the study, called the number of gunshot injuries suffered by Ontario children and youth staggering, according to Toronto Star. Peter Bregg / Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences By Nicholas Keung Immigration reporter Mon., March 27, 2017 A child or youth is shot in Ontario almost every day, according to a groundbreaking study that attempted to identify at-risk groups for firearm injuries. Tony Bock / Tony Bock/Toronto Star Dr. In the study, based on government health and immigration databases and published today in the Canadian Medical Association Journal, a team of Toronto researchers found Canadian-born youth, particularly males, have higher rates of unintentional firearm injuries compared with immigrant youth. Canadian-born males suffer 12.4 such injuries per 100,000 people 72 per cent higher than the 7.2 among immigrant males. The study found there were an average of 355 firearm injuries a year between 2008 and 2012, when a total of almost 1,800 firearm injuries were reported among children and youth in Ontario. (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.

holiday food: The experience, he said, is aimed at breaking down stereotypes and eliminating bigotry, according to The Chronicle Herald. What I hope is to know each other, said Jalal, who prefers that name, in a blog post the synagogue posted on its website ahead of the Seder. A 32-year-old Muslim, he has known few Jews personally, but come Passover he'll be among more than a dozen refugees sharing special holiday food and swapping life stories with congregants at Temple Beth-El in his new hometown of Richmond, Virginia. The Conservative synagogue's senior rabbi, Michael Knopf, said in an interview that it's the first time his congregation has marked the global refugee crisis through special readings and rituals at a Seder. The supplement was written by HIAS, a Jewish resettlement organization first established in the 1880s that has helped millions of Jews fleeing pogroms, war and other tragedies. Congregants and guests will be using a supplement to existing Haggadahs, the collection of recitations and stories that guide the evening, including the telling of the Israelites' liberation from Egypt. (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.

hospital administration: My colleagues were eager to help me, according to Toronto Star. When I moved into my apartment, they brought me furniture, she says. Peter Power / for The Toronto Star Neethamol Parapanatuputhenpurakal Subramannian moved to Woodstock to work at a nursing home. Toronto Star By Nicholas Keung Immigration reporter Sun., March 26, 2017 Apoorvya Kapoor started applying for jobs in Canada even before she arrived from India last May, but none of the 200-plus resumes she sent out to GTA employers yielded a response. You go to all these websites and 95 per cent of the job postings are within the GTA, said Kapoor, who has an undergraduate degree in biomedical engineering and a master's degree in hospital administration from India. Frustrated with the grim employment prospects, the new immigrant attended a job fair in Mississauga in November put on by the Peel Newcomer Centre and a staff member asked if she would consider relocating outside of Greater Toronto. (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.

islamic terrorism: The day before, a car bomb killed 10 people in Mogadishu, according to Hamilton Spectator. And a few days before that, 42 Somali refugees were killed when a helicopter fired on their boat off the coast of Yemen. A refugee camp in Nigeria was also bombed on Wednesday again by five Boko Haram suicide bombers. The through-line of this bloody snapshot is Islamic terrorism. One of the most counterproductive cuts of all, however, is the plan to slash soft power staples as diplomacy and foreign aid. But the response, as laid out in President Donald Trump's budget blueprint, is to pump an extra 54 billion into the best-funded military in the world while cutting investment in virtually everything else. (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.

obama administration: His statements in the White House briefing room brought to mind tough talk from President Donald Trump's campaign and came just three days after the administration's crushing health care defeat, according to CTV. But Sessions also acknowledged he was reiterating a similar policy adopted by the Obama administration last year. Sessions said the Justice Department would require cities seeking some of 4.1 billion available in grant money to verify that they are in compliance with a section of federal law that allows information sharing with immigration officials. I urge the nation's states and cities to carefully consider the harm they are doing to their citizens by refusing to enforce our immigration laws, Sessions said. But legal precedent suggests that would be difficult. The message is a furtherance of Trump's campaign promise to defund sanctuary cities by taking away their federal funding. (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.

place: While you may be focused on your move to a new place, you do need to make sure you notify everyone that you are leaving, according to Huffington Post Canada. This should include the taxman. From going through the immigration process to finding a place to live, to moving all of your possessions, it takes a considerable amount of work and coordination. Non-residents of Canada are not entitled to various benefits such as the Canada Child Benefit CCB so waiting until you file your return to notify the Canada Revenue Agency CRA you left will often result in having to repay some of the money. If you forget, you may continue to receive T slips instead of being subject to a different withholding tax amount, which will often trigger a letter from CRA asking you to file a return. You should also notify any company or organization that pays you income and make sure they change your status in their system and not just your address. (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.

quebec city: We think that it's really important for people to have the opportunity to talk about racism, to share their own stories and to really be able to listen to other people's stories, said Rhonda Rosenberg, Multicultural Council of Saskatchewan MCOS Executive Director, according to CTV. It's important to have it not be a scary taboo subject too, that it is something that we can and need to talk about. About 30 people attended the forum, with many sharing personal experiences and ideas to combat racism. Rosenberg said racism still exists, and event like these are important to battling it. We saw it again in conversations about Syrian refugees and we saw it with the horrible shooting at the Mosque in Quebec City. We saw in the wake of when Colten Boushie was killed in August last year, the social media comments that came out, to the extent that the Premier had to say, Racism has no place in Saskatchewan, said Rosenberg. (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.

refugee children: Three-quarters are unintentional, so these are accidents that happen, and about 25 per cent are intentional or assault, said senior author Dr, according to CTV. Astrid Guttmann, a pediatrician at Toronto's Hospital for Sick Children. Their study, published Monday in the Canadian Medical Association Journal, found there were 355 firearm injuries on average each year among children and youth, with about 23 to 25 -- or seven per cent -- resulting in death. When the researchers looked at provincial hospital emergency room records for gun-related injuries, they found Canadian-born youth, particularly males, had the highest rates of unintentional firearm injury -- 12 per 100,000 people versus about seven per 100,000 for immigrant males. Refugee children and youth were 1.4 times more likely to be shot than Canadian-born residents of the same age, while immigrant children and youth from Africa were almost three times as likely and those from Central America almost four times as likely to be a victim of a firearm assault, the study found. But when it came to firearm injuries due to assault, immigrants and refugees were at much higher risk than their non-immigrant counterparts. (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.

refugees: Their proposed app, Pathways, is a spin-off of Services Advisor, Services Advisor, which was profiled in National Observer earlier this year, according to Vancouver Observer. The app is being used by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees UNHCR in Jordan, Turkey and Somalia, connecting people with the help and services they need. If it wins, the group plans to use the funding to help refugees and immigrants rebuild their lives in Canada. Refugees await transportation at the Hadalat Border between Jordan and Syria. Pathways would help newcomers prepare for life in Canada, even before they arrive, through navigating immigration services and employment resources in the user's native language. File photo by J. Kohler, United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees Affinity Bridge, a Vancouver-based web development company working for progressive social and environmental causes, has been working for the last two years with nonprofit Peace Geeks to create the Services Advisor app. (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.

staff member: You go to all these websites and 95 per cent of the job postings are within the GTA, said Kapoor, who has an undergraduate degree in biomedical engineering and a master's degree in hospital administration from India, according to Metro News. I just never thought about that. Frustrated with the grim employment prospects, the new immigrant attended a job fair in Mississauga in November put on by the Newcomer Centre of Peel and a staff member asked if she would consider relocating outside of Greater Toronto. That's the mindset the Peel newcomer service agency is hoping to change with an innovative program, called the Rural Employment Initiative, which aims to connect newcomers with job openings in smaller Ontario communities. Youth from these communities are leaving for the big cities to study and when they finish school, they don't go back, said Oliver Pryce, the project's co-ordinator. Currently, the program serves any employer outsode the GTA, but ultimately it hopes to focus on communities with populations under 10,000. (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.

work songs: The Underground Railroad began in the 1780s and peaked between 1840-60, helping escaped slaves reach safety in mostly slavery-free Canada, according to Rabble. Volunteers on both sides arranged safe houses and co-ordinated passage across the U.S.-Canada border. By the time the United Empire Loyalists British subjects who rejected the 1776 Revolution were settling in and founding family dynasties, another group started to arrive. Since Southern states had laws against teaching slaves to read or write -- or giving them shoes -- Blacks used work songs to spread instructions about how to travel north. The drinking gourd is the Big Dipper. For example, Follow the Drinking Gourd urges runaways to find and follow the North Star. (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.

coalition government: The results allows party leader Boiko Borisov, a former prime minister, to form his third Cabinet, according to Brandon Sun. The Socialist Party was in second place, polling 27.1 per cent. With about 96.7 per cent of the votes counted, GERB had 32.6 per cent of the votes, the central election commission said. Its leader, Kornelia Ninova, conceded defeat and said the party wouldn't take part in a coalition government with GERB.GERB didn't win enough votes to govern alone, and will likely seek to form a coalition government with some of the three smaller parties whose votes exceeded the 4 per cent minimum threshold to enter parliament. If confirmed, the anti-establishment Volya Will party will enter parliament, scoring just over the minimum 4 per cent required to have seats in the legislature. The near final results showed the United Patriots, an alliance of three nationalist parties, winning 9.2 per cent and the Party for Rights and Freedoms of ethnic Turks with 8.9 per cent. (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.

german officials: So far the headlines have focused on tensions between the two leaders, according to Brandon Sun. Erdogan, who has been trying to woo the Turks in Germany with rallies and rhetoric, has accused German officials of acting like Nazis for blocking his supporters from holding rallies ahead of the referendum. The 1.4 million eligible Turkish voters in Germany represent about half the total number of expatriates who can cast ballots, and the fight for their support has been fierce. The move infuriated many in Germany, prompting Chancellor Angela Merkel to threaten that Berlin will take all necessary measures unless he stops the comparisons. Erdogan appeals to people who feel discriminated against, people who couldn't find their place in Germany, who have a bad job, a bad education and problems with their own identity, Aver said. But the referendum has also polarized the 3 million-strong Turkish community in Germany more than anything in its 60-year history, said Caner Aver, an expert from the Center for Turkey Studies in the western German city of Essen. (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.

refugee crisis: What I hope is to know each other, said Jalal, who prefers that name, in a blog post the synagogue posted on its website ahead of the Seder, according to Brandon Sun. The Conservative synagogue's senior rabbi, Michael Knopf, said in an interview that it's the first time his congregation has marked the global refugee crisis through special readings and rituals at a Seder. The experience, he said, is aimed at breaking down stereotypes and eliminating bigotry. Congregants and guests will be using a supplement to existing Haggadahs, the collection of recitations and stories that guide the evening, including the telling of the Israelites' liberation from Egypt. In recent years, the non-profit has helped resettle refugees of all faiths and ethnicities and offers aid around the world to people ineligible for entry to the U.S. Last year, Muslims comprised 51 per cent of the 4,191 people from 47 countries assisted by HIAS and its network of more than 320 synagogues that have signed on to support refugees. The supplement was written by HIAS, a Jewish resettlement organization first established in the 1880s that has helped millions of Jews fleeing pogroms, war and other tragedies. (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.

barry cole: President of the Cole Foundation, Barry Cole, said while the commission was in session it became clear that the Anglophone and Francophone communities in the province weren't as welcoming to immigrants as they should be, according to CBC. Canadian style' multiculturalism a menace to Quebec, commission hears This meant the immigrants were becoming 'ghettoized,' Cole said. The foundation started giving out its Intercultural Interculturelles IC-CI grants in 2008 after the release of the commission's recommendations, which included promoting intercultural dialogue in the province. I thought this was an interesting question to examine, and we could use theatre as a vehicle to address that question. There was only one problem Montreal theatre companies weren't very interested in someone telling them what to do. While the Bouchard-Taylor commission was in session Cole decided he wanted to encourage local theatre companies to tell stories from Quebec's multicultural communities. (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.