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The Wednesday news briefing: An at-a-glance survey of some top stories

Dec 28, 2016 | 1:45 PM

Highlights from the news file for Wednesday, Dec. 28

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KERRY DEFENDS U.S. POSITION ON ISRAEL: U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry has staunchly defended the Obama administration’s decision to allow the UN Security Council to declare Israeli settlements illegal. France’s Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault called Kerry’s speech “clear, courageous and committed.” And the Palestinian president said he’s ready to resume peace talks if Israel freezes settlement construction. Mahmoud Abbas’s words come as Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called Kerry’s speech a “great disappointment.”

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SUPER BOWL AD ISSUE IN COURT: The company that owns the right to broadcast the Super Bowl in Canada and the National Football League are in court in Ottawa, trying to reverse a ban on blacking out American ads and replacing them with Canadian ones. Bell Media, which owns CTV, and the NFL filed notices of appeal of a recent court ruling upholding the ban. The CRTC ruled in 2015 that simultaneous substitution of Canadian spots over the star-studded American ads would no longer be allowed, citing complaints from Canadians who wanted to see the U.S. ads.

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COMPETITIVE CYCLIST KILLED IN CRASH: A New Brunswick competitive cyclist has died after being hit by a vehicle while training near Sussex, N.B. Velo NB executive director Chris Foster says Ellen Watters’ cycling career was just growing as she prepared to race for a U-S team and go pro. Earlier this year, Watters won the Tour of the Battenkill and Tour of Somerville in the U.S., and won bronze in a race at the Canadian Road Championships. A statement from Watters’ family posted on the Cycling Canada website said she no longer had any brain function after the collision.

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SEARCH CONTINUES FOR MISSING MEN: A search resumed Wednesday in West Vancouver for two men facing a third day lost in the backcountry of the North Shore. Forty-three-year-old Roy Lee and Chun Lam, who’s 64, have been missing since Christmas Day when they went snowshoeing at the Cypress Mountain Resort. Rescuers were optimistic Tuesday after making possible voice contact with the pair, but had to quit in fading light. A search began Sunday night after Lee’s car was found in the parking lot of the resort, but without a trip plan, searchers have been challenged to trace the pair in the sprawling area.

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ATHEIST MINISTER SETTING UP SECULAR GROUP: A minister deemed unsuitable by the United Church for declaring herself an atheist is now at the heart of an effort to establish a type of church-style, secular community in Canada. Gretta Vosper is one of about 10 founding members of Toronto’s Oasis Network, believed to be the first of its kind in Canada and due to launch in February. Oasis communities are non-faith-based groups that try to draw people together based on five broad-based principles. Among them are notions that reality is best understood through reason rather than religious insight.

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MURDER TRIAL WITNESS ARRESTED IN OTTAWA: A man who allegedly fled Ottawa to avoid testifying at a murder trial has been arrested by police after landing at the city’s airport. Police say Ali Abdul Hussein was arrested on Tuesday after arriving in Ottawa from a foreign country. Hussein has been charged with failing to appear as a witness and obstructing justice in connection with the trial of Nawaf Al-Enzi, who was charged with the 2006 murder of Mohamed Zalal, an Ottawa-area drug dealer. Const. Chuck Benoit says Al-Enzi, who was Abdul Hussein’s brother-in-law, was found guilty earlier this month after a second trial.

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TRUMP CHANGES TUNE ON TRANSITION: U.S. president-elect Donald Trump now says the White House transition is going “smoothly” after complaining earlier about some of President Barack Obama’s “statements and roadblocks.” Earlier Wednesday, Trump wrote on Twitter: “Doing my best to disregard the many inflammatory President O statements and roadblocks. Thought it was going to be a smooth transition — NOT!”  In brief remarks to journalists at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida later in the day, Trump said he thought the transition was going “very, very smoothly.”

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ARREST MADE IN GERMAN CHRISTMAS MARKET ATTACK: German prosecutors said Wednesday that they have detained a Tunisian man they think may have been involved in last week’s truck attack on a Christmas market in Berlin. The 40-year-old, who wasn’t identified, was detained in Berlin during a search of his home and business, federal prosecutors said. The man’s telephone number was saved in the cellphone of Anis Amri, a fellow Tunisian believed to have driven a truck into the market on Dec. 19, killing 12. Amri, 24, was killed in a shootout with Italian police in a suburb of Milan last Friday.

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EAGLES GETTING ELECTROCUTED IN B.C.: A wildlife rehabilitation group is sounding the alarm amid a steep increase in electrocuted eagles in Metro Vancouver. Rob Hope, raptor care manager at the Orphaned Wildlife Rehabilitation Society, says almost four dozen eagles have been electrocuted this year while looking for a place to perch in the south Delta area. Hope says several hundred birds gather to winter along the Pacific flyway and when the trees get too crowded the birds perch on power poles.

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The Canadian Press