#Canada: Car theft numbers are dropping, but will your insurance rates? New data shows vehicle thefts dropped 19 per cent nationally in the first half of 2025, compared to the same period last year. Ontario saw the biggest decline at 26 per cent.

But insurance industry officials say the improvement in theft rates won’t necessarily translate to lower premiums for drivers anytime soon.

“It’s encouraging to see some small steps in the right direction,” Hanna Beydoun, director of auto policy at the Insurance Bureau of Canada, told CTV News. “But the problem remains significantly above historical levels, and it’s far from the only factor that contributes to the cost that drivers pay for auto insurance.”

According to a new report from Equate Association, 23,000 personal cars and trucks were stolen in the first half of this year, which is down substantially from the 34,000 by July of 2023.

While the numbers represent progress, they come after a decade of rising theft rates. The Insurance Bureau of Canada says over the last 10 years, claims are up more than 115 per cent and auto theft costs have skyrocketed 371 per cent.

“One year is great, it’s a great indication of where trends might go,” Beydoun said. “But there’s still lots more work that remains to be done to get us out of this auto theft crisis.”
Why premiums keep rising

Beyond theft, Beydoun says several factors are driving up insurance costs across the country, including repair costs having jumped 22 per cent since the pandemic began, noting that tariffs on vehicle parts are making replacements more expensive. She also says Alberta has seen collision-related lawsuits rise significantly.

“Unless all the cost drivers are completely pulled out of the system, there’s going to be continued upward pressure on auto insurance premiums across the country,” Beydoun said.

For Ryan Tostik of Milton, Ont., the theft statistics aren’t just numbers. They represent a devastating personal loss.

His beloved 2004 Chevy Silverado was stolen from an auto repair shop on July 18. Tostik had spent six years and a lot of money restoring the truck, including a fresh paint job and new engine.

“It’s all a big shock, to be honest. I kind of feel violated,” he said. “Considering how much money that I put into it, and it was considered almost finished.”

Tostik says to him, the truck was worth between $50,000 and $60,000, and he can’t believe it was gone “within minutes.”

He says the response from police was discouraging.

“They just say it’s an everyday occurrence. So, more or less, they tell me you’re on your own,” he said. “Otherwise, call your insurance company.”

Now Tostik is hoping his insurer will recognize the truck’s value, and is armed with receipts for all the restoration work.

“I never had anything stolen in my life. So it’s a big shock and a gut-wrenching feeling in the stomach,” he said. “I’d like to have the vehicle back. I’m not hopeful, but I’m trying to be hopeful.”

Brian Gast, national vice-president of Investigative Services at Equite Association, credits the decline in thefts to increased public awareness and a collaborate effort between various levels of government and law enforcement agencies.

“I do caution that even though the numbers are going down, they’re still high,” he said. “It doesn’t mean that we need to take our foot off the gas.”

Gast says auto theft remains a major funding source for organized crime and criminals are adapting. Gast says investigators are seeing more “chop shops,” where stolen vehicles are dismantled and sold for parts, and they’re also replacing the vehicle identification number on stolen vehicles.
How to protect yourself

Gast has a few recommendations when it comes to vehicle security:

Park in a garage or well-lit area, when possible
Keep windows up and doors locked
Never leave key fobs inside the vehicle
Consider aftermarket tracking devices
Use visible deterrents like steering wheel locks

“You don’t have to do them all, but we call it a layered approach,” Gast said.

#Canada pledges $30M in Gaza aid, $10M for Palestinian Authority work toward statehood.

Canada is adding $30 million to its humanitarian funding for Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, along with $10 million to help the Palestinian Authority reform itself for eventual statehood.

Foreign Affairs Minister Anita Anand is announcing the new funding today at a major United Nations conference in New York aimed at finding ways to preserve the two-state solution.

The conference is taking place as international experts warn of starvation in Gaza, where Israel has slightly loosened its restrictions on aid deliveries to desperate Palestinians.

Anand says the $30 million will get to Gaza “as soon as logistically possible” and calls for a ceasefire to help the region move toward peace.

Canada has not joined France in announcing plans to recognize a Palestinian state, and is instead saying that the Palestinian Authority must “undertake the comprehensive reforms necessary to govern Gaza and the West Bank.”

Ottawa is pledging $10 million to accelerate reform so that the Palestinian Authority can provide “legitimate, democratic governance.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published June 28, 2025

Dylan Robertson, The Canadian Press

Flash floods in Romania kill at least 3 people and force hundreds of evacuations

A Russian overnight air attack on #Kyiv wounded eight residents of an apartment building, including a 3-year-old child, authorities in the #Ukrainian capital said on Monday.

#Israeli settlers attacked the Christian Palestinian village of Taybeh in the occupied West Bank, torching cars and spray-painting threatening graffiti, the Palestinian Authority said on Monday.

Powerful sister of North #Korean leader Kim rejects outreach by South’s new president.

Kim Yo Jong’s comments suggest again that North Korea, now preoccupied with its expanding cooperation with Russia, has no intentions of returning to diplomacy with South Korea and the U.S. anytime soon. But experts said North Korea could change its course if it thinks it cannot maintain the same booming ties with Russia when the Russia-Ukraine war nears an end.

“We clarify once again the official stand that no matter what policy is adopted and whatever proposal is made in Seoul, we have no interest in it and there is neither a reason to meet nor an issue to be discussed with” South Korea, Kim Yo Jong said in a statement carried by state media.

It’s North Korea’s first official statement on the government of South Korean President Lee Jae Myung, which took office in early June. In an effort to improve badly frayed ties with North Korea, Lee’s government has halted anti-Pyongyang frontline loudspeaker broadcasts, taken steps to ban activists from flying balloons with propaganda leaflets across the border and repatriated North Koreans who were drifted south in wooden boats months earlier.

Kim Yo Jong called such steps “sincere efforts” by Lee’s government to develop ties. But she said the Lee government won’t be much different from its predecessors, citing what it calls “their blind trust” to the military alliance with the U.S. and attempt to “stand in confrontation” with North Korea. She mentioned the upcoming summertime South Korea-U.S. military drills, which North Korea views as an invasion rehearsal.

North Korea has been shunning talks with South Korea and the U.S. since leader Kim Jong Un’s high-stakes nuclear diplomacy with President Donald Trump fell apart in 2019 due to wrangling over international sanctions. North Korea has since focused on building more powerful nuclear weapons targeting its rivals.

North Korea now prioritizes cooperation with Russia by sending troops and conventional weapons to support its war against Ukraine, likely in return for economic and military assistance. South Korea, the U.S. and others say Russia may even give North Korea sensitive technologies that can enhance its nuclear and missile programs.

Since beginning his second term in January, Trump has repeatedly boasted of his personal ties with Kim Jong Un and expressed intent to resume diplomacy with him. But North Korea hasn’t publicly responded to Trump’s overture.

In early 2024, Kim Jong Un ordered the rewriting of the constitution to remove the long-running state goal of a peaceful Korean unification and cement South Korea as an “invariable principal enemy.” That caught many foreign experts by surprise because it was seen as eliminating the idea of shared statehood between the war-divided Koreas and breaking away with his predecessors’ long-cherished dreams of peacefully achieving a unified Korea on the North’s terms.

Many experts say Kim likely aims to guard against South Korean cultural influence and bolster his family’s dynastic rule. Others say Kim wants legal room to use his nuclear weapons against South Korea by making it as a foreign enemy state, not a partner for potential unification which shares a sense of national homogeneity.

At least 34 killed in attack on east #Congo church by Islamic State-backed rebels, civil leader says.

#GOMA, Congo — Islamic State-backed rebels attacked a Catholic church in eastern Congo on Sunday, killing at least 34 people, according to a local civil society leader.

Dieudonne Duranthabo, a civil society coordinator in Komanda, in the Ituri province, told The Associated Press that the attackers stormed the church in Komanda town at around 1 a.m. Several houses and shops were also burnt.

“The bodies of the victims are still at the scene of the tragedy, and volunteers are preparing how to bury them in a mass grave that we are preparing in a compound of the Catholic church,” Duranthabo said.

Video footage from the scene shared online appeared to show burning structures and bodies on the floor of the church. Those who were able to identify some of the victims wailed while others stood in shock.

At least five other people were killed in an earlier attack on the nearby village of Machongani.

“They took several people into the bush; we do not know their destination or their number,” Lossa Dhekana, a civil society leader in Ituri, told the AP.

Both attacks are believed to have been carried out by members of the Allied Democratic Force (ADF) armed with guns and machetes.

Lt. Jules Ngongo, a spokesperson for the Congolese army in Ituri, confirmed at least 10 fatalities in the Komanda church attack. However, U.N.-backed Radio Okapi reported 43 deaths, citing security sources. The attackers reportedly came from a stronghold about 12 kilometers (7 miles) from Komanda and fled before security forces arrived.

Duranthabo condemned the violence in what he said was “a town where all the security officials are present.” He called for immediate military intervention, warning that “the enemy is still near our town.”

Eastern Congo has suffered deadly attacks in recent years by armed groups, including the ADF and Rwanda-backed rebels. The ADF, which has ties to the Islamic State, operates in the borderland between Uganda and Congo and often targets civilians. The group killed dozens of people in Ituri earlier this month in what a United Nations spokesperson described as a bloodbath.

The ADF was formed by disparate small groups in Uganda in the late 1990s following alleged discontent with President Yoweri Museveni.

In 2002, following military assaults by Ugandan forces, the group moved its activities to neighboring Congo and has since been responsible for the killings of thousands of civilians. In 2019, it pledged allegiance to the Islamic State.

The Congolese army (FARDC) has long struggled to contain the group, especially amid renewed conflict involving the M23 rebel movement backed by neighboring Rwanda.

Justin Kabumba and Ope Adetayo, The Associated Press

Adetayo reported from Lagos, Nigeria and Saleh Mwanamilongo contributed to this report.

#Iran executes 2 opposition members over alleged attacks on civilian sites.

#TEHRAN, Iran — Iran said Sunday it has executed two members of the exiled opposition group Mujahedeen-e-Khalq after convicting them of carrying out attacks on public and civilian infrastructure.

The judiciary’s official news website, Mizan Online, reported that Behrouz Ehsani Eslamlou and Mehdi Hasani were hanged on Sunday morning after being found guilty of using improvised mortar launchers to target residential areas, educational institutions and government buildings.

In January, rights group Amnesty International had issued an appeal for Eslamlou and Hasani, saying the two had been interrogated without the presence of lawyers and had been subjected “to torture and other ill-treatment, including beatings and prolonged solitary confinement, to extract self-incriminating statements.”

The Mojahedin Organization of Iran, also known as the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran, issued a statement decrying the executions and said both men had been “subjected to savage torture.”

Calling for international condemnation of the executions, the group said another 14 people have been sentenced to death in Iran for alleged membership in the organization “and are at imminent risk of execution.”

Iranian courts charged the two men with several offenses, including waging war against the state, conspiracy, sabotage and membership in a terrorist organization. Prosecutors accused them of plotting to destabilize national security and damage public property.

The Mujahedeen-e-Khalq, once a Marxist-Islamist group that opposed Iran’s monarchy, backed the 1979 Islamic Revolution but later broke with Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini’s government. It carried out a series of deadly bombings and assassinations in the 1980s and supported Saddam Hussein during the Iran-Iraq war — stances that still provoke widespread resentment within Iran. The group is now largely based in Albania but claims to operate a clandestine network inside Iran.

The last known execution of Mujahedeen-e-Khalq members took place in 2009, following their conviction in connection with an attempted bombing in Tehran’s central Enghelab Square.

The Associated Press

The #Israeli military said it had also begun airdropping food into the Palestinian territory -- making one drop of seven palettes -- while Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejected what he characterised as #UN “lies” that his government was to blame for the dire humanitarian situation.

The army also dismissed allegations that it had been using starvation as a weapon, saying it had coordinated with the UN and international agencies to “increase the scale of humanitarian aid entering the Gaza Strip”.

UN emergency relief coordinator Tom Fletcher welcomed the tactical pauses, saying he was in “contact with our teams on the ground who will do all we can to reach as many starving people as we can in this window”.

But the UN’s World Food Programme said a third of the population of Gaza had not eaten for days, and 470,000 people were “enduring famine-like conditions” that were already leading to deaths.

The Israeli decision came as international pressure mounted on Netanyahu’s government to head off the risk of mass starvation in the territory.

Germany’s Chancellor Friedrich Merz joined the chorus of concern on Sunday, urging Netanyahu “to provide the starving civilian population in Gaza with urgently needed humanitarian aid now.”

Accusing the UN of fabricating “pretexts and lies about Israel” blocking aid, Netanyahu said in remarks at an airbase that “there are secure routes” for aid.

“There have always been, but today it’s official. There will be no more excuses,” he added.

Since Israel imposed a total blockade on aid entering Gaza on March 2, the situation inside the territory has deteriorated sharply. More than 100 NGOs warned this week of “mass starvation”.

Though aid has trickled back in since late May, the UN and humanitarian agencies say Israeli restrictions remain excessive and road access inside Gaza is tightly controlled.
‘Life’s wish’

The Jordanian military said its planes, working with the United Arab Emirates, had delivered 25 tonnes of aid in three parachute drops over Gaza on Sunday. Truckloads of flour were also seen arriving in northern Gaza through the Zikim area crossing from Israel, according to AFP journalists.

The charity Oxfam’s regional policy chief Bushra Khalidi called Israel’s latest moves a “welcome first step” but warned they could prove insufficient.

“Starvation won’t be solved by a few trucks or airdrops,” she said. “What’s needed is a real humanitarian response: ceasefire, full access, all crossings open, and a steady, large-scale flow of aid into Gaza.

“We need a permanent ceasefire, a complete lifting of the siege.”

In general, humanitarian officials are deeply sceptical airdrops can deliver enough food safely to tackle the hunger crisis facing Gaza’s more than two million inhabitants.

In Gaza City’s Tel al-Hawa district, 30-year-old Suad Ishtaywi said her “life’s wish” was to simply feed her children. She spoke of her husband returning empty-handed from aid points daily.

Chaotic scenes broke out at the site where Israel conducted its first food drop, witnesses told AFP.

Samih Humeid, a 23-year-old from the Al-Karama neighbourhood of Gaza City, said dozens of people had gathered to rush towards the palettes of supplies parachuted onto the area.

“It felt like a war, everyone trying to grab whatever they could. Hunger is merciless. The quantities were extremely limited, not enough even for a few people, because hunger is everywhere. I only managed to get three cans of fava beans,” he said.

In a social media post, the Israeli military announced it had “carried out an airdrop of humanitarian aid as part of the ongoing efforts to allow and facilitate the entry of aid into the Gaza Strip”.

AFP journalists saw Egyptian trucks crossing from Rafah, with cargo routed through Israel’s Kerem Shalom checkpoint for inspection before entering Gaza.

The Israeli army’s daily pause from 10:00 am to 8:00 pm will be limited to areas where its troops are not currently operating -- Al-Mawasi in the south, central Deir el-Balah and Gaza City in the north.

Israel said “designated secure routes” would also open across Gaza for aid convoys carrying food and medicine.

The military said the measures should disprove “the false claim of deliberate starvation”.

Last November, the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Netanyahu and former Israeli defence minister Yoav Gallant, citing “reasonable grounds” to suspect war crimes including starvation -- charges Israel vehemently denies.
Activists intercepted

On Sunday, according to the Gaza civil defence agency, Israeli army fire killed 27 Palestinians, 12 of them near aid distribution areas.

Media restrictions in Gaza and difficulties in accessing many areas mean AFP is unable to independently verify tolls and details provided by the civil defence agency and other parties.

Separately, the Israeli navy brought an activist boat, the Handala operated by the Freedom Flotilla Coalition, into the part of Ashdod, after intercepting and boarding it late Saturday to prevent it attempting to breach a maritime blockade of Gaza.

The legal rights centre Adalah told AFP its lawyers were in Ashdod and had met with 19 of the 21 detained activists and journalists from 10 countries. The other two detainees, dual US-Israeli nationals, had been transferred to Israeli police custody, the group said.

Israel launched its military campaign in Gaza after Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack resulted in the deaths of 1,219 people, most of them civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official figures.

The Israeli campaign has killed 59,733 Palestinians, mostly civilians, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory.

AFP

Crowd surge at Hindu temple in northern India leaves at least 6 dead.

The incident in the pilgrimage city of Haridwar occurred after a high-voltage electric wire reportedly fell on a temple path, triggering panic among the large crowd of devotees.

Vinay Shankar Pandey, a senior government official in Uttarakhand state where the incident happened, confirmed the deaths and said worshippers scrambled for safety following the incident.

Some 29 people were injured, according to Haridwar city’s senior police official Pramendra Singh Doval.

Thousands of pilgrims had gathered at the Mansa Devi hilltop temple, which is a major site for Hindu devotees, especially on weekends and festival days, local officials said. They were celebrating the holy month of Shravan.

Someone in the crowd shouted about an electric current on the pathway around 9 a.m.

“Since the path is narrow and meant only for foot traffic, confusion and panic spread instantly,” said local priest Ujjwal Pandit.

“A wall along the path is also suspected to have worsened the crowd bottleneck,” he added.

Police and emergency services rushed to the scene and launched a rescue operation. The injured were transported to a nearby hospital, officials said.

“The situation is now under control,” Pandey told the Associated Press by phone from Haridwar. “But the panic led to tragic consequences.”

Authorities are investigating what caused the overhead wire to collapse, and whether proper crowd management protocols were in place.

The town of Haridwar draws millions of visitors each year. The Mansa Devi temple, which is accessible by cable car or foot, is a major pilgrimage site that draws thousands of visitors daily during Shravan.

Crowd surges at religious gatherings are not uncommon in India, where massive groups often congregate at temples or pilgrimage sites, sometimes overwhelming local infrastructure and security measures.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi offered his condolences to the victims and their families in a social media post and wished for a fast recovery for those who were injured.

Biswajeet Banerjee, The Associated Press