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Hundreds attend vigil to honour 20 victims of limousine crash
AMSTERDAM, N.Y. — A ceremony for the victims of the limousine crash that killed 20 people ended with participants lifting candles above their heads to signal unity and perseverance.
Over 1,000 people jammed a riverside park in Amsterdam, New York, for Monday night’s vigil as victims’ relatives tried to come to grips with the tragedy that happened as a group of friends and family were on their way to a 30th birthday party.
The supersized limo ran a stop sign and hit a parked SUV on Saturday in Schoharie (skoh-HAYR’-ee).
Authorities have yet to say how fast the limo was going or determine why it failed to stop and sped off the road at the bottom of a long hill.
The 19-seat vehicle had at least some seat belts, but it was unclear whether anyone was wearing them, National Transportation Safety Board Chairman Robert Sumwalt said.
The crash about 170 miles north of New York City came three years after another deadly stretch-limo wreck in New York state spurred calls for Gov. Andrew Cuomo to examine such vehicles’ safety. There is no evidence the state took any steps to do so.
Some relatives of the dead shed tears as local officials expressed solidarity with them.
U.S. Rep. Paul Tonko, a Democrat from Amsterdam, told a crowd that spilled onto a bridge spanning the Mohawk River, “We are crushed with you, we are crushed for you.”
Some relatives shed tears as a woman sang “Amazing Grace.” The ceremony ended with everyone lifting their candles above their heads in unity.
The wreck killed two pedestrians and all 18 people in the limousine, including four sisters who were headed with friends and relatives to a brewery for a party for one of the sisters.
The four sisters’ aunt, Barbara Douglas, said they had felt “they did the responsible thing getting a limo so they wouldn’t have to drive anywhere.”
“My heart is sunken. It’s in a place where I’ve never felt this type of pain before,” said Karina Halse, who lost her 26-year-old sister Amanda.
Authorities haven’t released the driver’s name, but friends and relatives identified him on social media as Scott Lisinicchia.
“The investigation is STILL going on and the facts are not verified,” his niece, Courtney Lisinicchia, wrote on Facebook.
The state moved to shut down the owner, Prestige Limousine, as state and federal authorities investigated the cause of Saturday’s wreck in Schoharie. The company said it was taking its cars off the road while conducting its own probe into the crash.
Investigators plan to examine the mangled limo’s data recorders and mechanical systems as well as the road, which has a history as a danger spot. They are also looking into the driver’s record and qualifications and conducting an autopsy to see if drugs or alcohol were factors.
But officials already saw some red flags, Cuomo said: The driver didn’t have the necessary commercial license, and the vehicle failed a state inspection that examined such things as the chassis, suspension and brakes.
“In my opinion, the owner of this company had no business putting a failed vehicle on the road,” the governor said while attending a Columbus Day Parade in New York City. “Prestige has a lot of questions to answer.”
He also said the limo — built by cutting apart a heavy-duty SUV and lengthening it — had been created without federal certification, though NTSB officials said they hadn’t yet determined whether the vehicle met federal standards.
Prestige Limousine issued a statement Monday expressing condolences to victims’ families and saying it was conducting “a detailed internal investigation” while also meeting with state and federal authorities.
The Gansevoort, New York-based company said it pulled its cars from the road voluntarily. But state police say they seized four Prestige cars, including the one that crashed.
Federal records show the company has undergone five inspections in the past two years and had four vehicles pulled from service.
In inspections Sept. 4, the company’s limos were cited for defective brakes, lack of proper emergency exits, flat or balding tires, defective windshield wipers, and other maintenance problems.
An attorney for Prestige said Tuesday the safety violations were fixed before Saturday’s wreck. Lee Kindlon told CBS News he doesn’t think the recent infractions contributed. He told the Times Union of Albany the driver may have been unfamiliar with the roadway.
Federal transportation records show Prestige is owned by Shahed Hussain, who worked as an informant for the FBI after the Sept. 11 attacks, infiltrating Muslim groups by posing as a terrorist sympathizer in at least three investigations. In one case, he helped convict men accused of plotting to bomb New York synagogues.
His role at the FBI was assailed by civil liberties groups, who accused him of helping the FBI entrap people. Asked Monday about Hussain, the FBI wouldn’t comment.
The limousine, built from a 2001 Ford Excursion, ran a stop sign at a T-shaped intersection at the bottom of a hill and slammed into an unoccupied SUV.
Investigators have yet to determine whether the driver tried to brake. The crash left no visible skid marks, but that might be due to misty weather or anti-lock brakes, Sumwalt said.
The crash appeared to be the deadliest land-vehicle accident in the U.S. since a bus full of Texas nursing home patients fleeing 2005’s Hurricane Rita caught fire, killing 23. Saturday’s wreck was the nation’s deadliest transportation accident of any kind since a 2009 plane crash near Buffalo, New York, killed 50 people.
Factory-built limousines must meet stringent safety regulations. But luxury cars converted to limos, like the one in Saturday’s crash, often lack such safety components as side-impact air bags, reinforced rollover protection bars and accessible emergency exits.
Few federal regulations govern limos modified after leaving the factory. Regulations often vary by state.
“It certainly is the Wild West out there when it comes to limousines and stretch vehicles,” said National Safety Council CEO Deborah A.P. Hersman.
Ford said in a statement that it has never made its own stretch version of the Excursion. It did certify outside companies to modify them to Ford specifications for up to 14 seats during the 2001 model year, but it wasn’t clear who modified the SUV that crashed Saturday.
After a stretch limousine was T-boned on New York’s Long Island in 2015, killing four women, a special grand jury implored Cuomo to examine the safety of such vehicles.
It appears the task force was never formed, and nearly three years after the grand jury’s recommendation, it was unclear what, if anything, Cuomo’s administration did in response.
“I don’t know if there was a task force set up,” the governor said Monday, while suggesting that Saturday’s crash didn’t necessarily point to a need for more regulation.
“Sometimes, people just don’t follow the law” that already exists, he said. “And that may very well be what happened here.”
The New York grand jury report recommended state lawmakers require stretch limousines that seat nine or more passengers to meet the stricter inspection regulations that apply to buses.
Lawmakers, including Democratic Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York, asked federal officials several years ago to raise safety standards for stretch limos modified after manufacture.
___
Caserta reported from New York. Contributing to this report were Associated Press writers Michael Balsamo, Jennifer Peltz and Jim Mustian in New York; Mary Esch in Latham, N.Y.; David Klepper in Albany, N.Y.; and AP Auto Writer Tom Krisher in Detroit.
Michael Hill And Sabrina Caserta, The Associated Press
Human trafficking suspect arrested in Red Deer, July 2024
From Alert, the Alberta Law Enforcement Response Team
Three human traffickers arrested in Project Endgame
Three men have been arrested and stand accused of running a human trafficking operation that stretched across Canada; operating throughout Alberta, British Columbia, Saskatchewan, and Quebec.
Project Endgame was a year-long investigation led by ALERT’s Human Trafficking unit, and also relied on the assistance of the Edmonton Police Service, RCMP, and the Quebec joint forces Anti-Pimping team known as EILP.
Arrests and search warrants had taken place in Edmonton, Montreal, and Red Deer. A total of 23 charges related to human trafficking offences have been laid against Clyde Elien-Abbot, 31, Kevin Dorcelus-Cetoute, 31, and Jean Rodnil Dubois, 31. Elien-Abbot was arrested on January 31, 2025 in Edmonton, while the other two accused were arrested on July 23, 2024.
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From LifeSiteNews
The Liberals are choosing a new face, but all six contenders seem likely to continue forcing Canadians down the same path as the PM they’re out to replace
With the Liberal leadership election just over a month away on March 9, Canadians are examining the six final contenders and questioning if they will bring change to the Liberal Party or carry on Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s radical legacy.
The six contenders for Liberal leader and consequently, the next prime minister, are: Mark Carney, Chrystia Freeland, Karina Gould, Jaime Battiste, Frank Baylis and Ruby Dhalla.
While all the above candidates are promising to turn the Liberal Party around, their policies, both past and proposed, suggest little difference from the radical, anti-life and globalist agenda embraced by the Trudeau government.
Former Governor of the Bank of England Mark Carney
Carney appears to be the frontrunner for Liberal Party leader, with many mainstream outlets tacitly promoting him as a solution for Canadians, and numerous MPs having endorsed his campaign.
However, as LifeSiteNews has previously reported, Carney’s history suggests he would be an even more radical version of Trudeau.
While his impressive work experience certainly raises him in the estimation of Canadians, especially compared with Trudeau’s pre-political career as a drama teacher, the former Governor of the Bank of England, like Trudeau, openly supports abortion, the LGBT agenda and many of the tax and fiscal policies of the Trudeau government, such as the carbon tax.
Carney’s endorsement of energy regulations go even further than Trudeau’s, with the candidate having previously blasted the prime minister for exempting home heating oil from the carbon tax.
Carney has also been a longtime supporter of the globalist World Economic Forum, attending their infamous annual conference in Davos, Switzerland as recently as January 2023.
Carney routinely uses social media to advocate for achieving so-called “net-zero” energy goals, and even had his team bar multiple independent journalists from attending the press conference he held to announce his bid for Liberal leader.
Former Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland
Freeland’s bid for Liberal leader came as a surprise to many as it closely followed her resignation from Trudeau’s cabinet.
Freeland is perhaps best known internationally for her heavy-handed response to anti-mandate Freedom Convoy protesters, which saw the then-finance minister direct financial institutions to freeze the bank accounts of Canadians who participated in or donated to the protest.
Freeland, like Carney, also has extensive ties to the WEF, with her receiving a personal commendation from former WEF leader Klaus Schwab.
Interestingly, at the same time as Freeland announced her Liberal bid, the WEF’s profile on Freeland was taken down from their website. Additionally, the majority of Freeland’s Instagram posts have been removed from public view.
Many have speculated online as to the reason why these actions were taken, with some suggesting that Freeland desires to distance herself from the massively criticized group.
Critics often pointed to Freeland’s association with the group during her tenure as finance minister and deputy prime minister, as she was known for pushing policies endorsed by the globalist organization, such as the carbon tax and online censorship.
Former House Leader MP Karina Gould
Gould, an avid abortion activist, is perhaps best known for telling American women that they can have their abortions in Canada following the Supreme Court of the United States’ overturning of Roe v. Wade in 2022.
Gould is also known for continually advocating in favor of state-funded media, which critics have warned causes supposedly unbiased news outlets into de facto propaganda arms for the state.
In one example from September, Gould directed mainstream media reporters to “scrutinize” Conservative Party leader Pierre Poilievre, who has repeatedly accused government-funded media as being an arm of the Liberals.
Gould also claimed that Poilievre’s promise to defund outlets like the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation would deny Canadians access to important information, ignoring the fact that the Liberals’ own legislation, which she voted for, blocked all access to news content on Facebook and Instagram.
MP Jaime Battiste
Voting records show that in 2021 Battiste opposed a bill aiming to protect unborn children from sex-selective abortions. Later that same month, he voted to pass Bill C-6, which allows parents to be jailed for up to five years for refusing to deny the biological sex of their gender-confused children.
Furthermore, Battiste struck down a motion to condemn incidents of arson and vandalism of churches across Canada. In October 2023, a Conservative MP put forward a motion to denounce the arson and vandalism of 83 Canadian churches, especially those within Indigenous communities.
However, Battiste moved to adjourn the meeting rather than discuss the motion, saying, “I would like to call to adjourn debate on this if that’s what we can do, so we can hear the rest of the study, but if we have to, then I would rather discuss it in camera because it does have a way of triggering a lot of people who went through residential schools and the things they are going through.”
The Liberal government is known to be extremely lenient in their rhetoric when it comes to attacks on Catholic churches, with Trudeau even saying such behavior was “understandable” even if it is “unacceptable and wrong.”
Former MP Frank Baylis
Baylis served as a Liberal MP in 2015 but chose not to seek re-election in 2019. Now, he has thrown his hat in the ring as Liberal leader.
During his time as MP, Baylis was a staunch supporter of abortion. In 2016, he voted against a Conservative bill to provide protection to unborn children and pregnant mothers from violence.
Interestingly, Baylis is the former owner of the Baylis Medical Company of Montréal which was awarded a $282.5 million government contract for now “useless” ventilators during the COVID “pandemic.”
Former MP Ruby Dhalla
Dhalla served in the House of Commons from 2004 to 2011. Interestingly, Dhalla, born to Indian immigrant parents, has promised to deport illegal immigrants and “clamp down on human traffickers.” Dhalla’s stance sets her apart from the other Liberal candidates on the issue.
While Dhalla styles herself as an “outsider,” during her time as an MP, she worked to further abortion in Canada, voting against legislation to protect babies from violence in the womb.
In conclusion
It seems that no matter who is selected as the next leader of the Liberals, the party will remain one which prides itself on being pro-abortion, pro-LGBT, pro-euthanasia and globalist in vision.
While Trudeau may be taking the blame for the current state of the Liberal Party, with these 6 candidates it would appear that the party remains intent on pushing the same policies.
Although it is true that Trudeau’s political blunders, such as his repeated historical use of black-face or his inviting a Nazi-aligned World War II veteran into Parliament, have contributed to his popularity decline, it seems the policies behind the blunders are not his, but the Liberal Party’s itself.
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