IN PHOTOS Northern lights dance across the night sky in southern Ont.
From London, to Mildmay, Collingwood and St. Thomas, here are some highlights of Friday night and Saturday morning's northern lights display.
Russia and Ukraine traded accusations Monday that each side is shelling Europe's biggest nuclear power plant in southern Ukraine. Russia claimed that Ukrainian shelling caused a power surge and fire and forced staff to lower output from two reactors, while Ukraine has blamed Russian troops for storing weapons there.
Nuclear experts have warned that more shelling of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power station, which was captured by Russia early in the war, is fraught with danger.
The Kremlin echoed that Monday, claiming that Kyiv was attacking the plant and urging Western powers to force a stop to that.
“Shelling of the territory of the nuclear plant by the Ukrainian armed forces is highly dangerous,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters. “It's fraught with catastrophic consequences for vast territories, for the entire Europe.”
Ukraine's military intelligence spokesman, Andriy Yusov, countered that Russian forces have planted explosives at the plant to head off an expected Ukrainian counteroffensive in the region. Previously, Ukrainian officials have said Russia is launching attacks from the plant and using Ukrainian workers there as human shields.
Yusov called on Russia to “make a goodwill gesture and hand over control of the plant to an international commission and the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency), if not to the Ukrainian military.”
Ukraine's ombudsman, Dmytro Lubinets, likewise urged that the United Nations, the IAEA and the international community send a delegation to “completely demilitarize the territory” and provide security guarantees to plant employees and the city where the plant is based, Enerhodar.
The IAEA is the UN's nuclear watchdog. Its director-general, Rafael Grossi, told The Associated Press last week that the situation surrounding the Zaporizhzhia plant “is completely out of control,” and issued an urgent plea to Russia and Ukraine to allow experts to visit the complex to stabilize the situation and avoid a nuclear accident.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres voiced support for that idea Monday, saying, “any attack to a nuclear plant is a suicidal thing.”
One expert in nuclear materials at Imperial College London said the reactor at Zaporizhzhia is modern and housed inside a heavily reinforced steel-and-concrete building designed to protect against disasters.
“As such, I do not believe there would be a high probably of a breach of the containment building, even if it was accidently struck by an explosive shell, and even less likely the reactor itself could be damaged,” said Mark Wenman at the college's Nuclear Energy Futures.
He also said the complex's spent fuel tanks, where the shells reportedly hit, are strong and probably don't contain much spent fuel.
“Although it may seem worrying, and any fighting on a nuclear site would be illegal according to international law, the likelihood of a serious nuclear release is still small,” he said.
Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Lt. Gen. Igor Konashenkov said the attack Sunday caused a power surge and smoke, triggering an emergency shutdown. Fire teams extinguished flames, and the plant's personnel lowered the output of reactors No. 5 and No. 6 to 500 megawatts, he said.
And the head of the Ukrainian company operating the plant said all but one power line connecting it to Ukraine's energy system had been destroyed. Petro Kotin, head of the Ukrainian state corporation Eherhoatom, blamed Russian shelling and said a blackout would be “very unsafe for such a nuclear facility.”
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy decried “the shelling and mining” of the plant and called it “nuclear blackmail.” He called for sanctions against Moscow's nuclear industry.
As fighting continued on the front lines, the United States on Monday pledged another $1 billion in new military aid for Ukraine. It would be the biggest delivery yet of rockets, ammunition and other arms straight from U.S. Department of Defense stocks for Ukrainian forces.
The latest announcement brings total U.S. security assistance committed to Ukraine by the Biden administration to $9.1 billion since Russian troops invaded on Feb. 24.
Ukraine's presidential office said the Russians had shelled seven Ukrainian regions over the previous 24 hours, killing five people. Among the targets, it said, was Nikopol, just across the Dnieper River from the Zaporizhzhia plant. Thousands of people were without electricity there.
Russian rockets and artillery also hit across the Sumy region, killing one person, and the Ukrainian governor of the eastern Donetsk region said the cities of Bakhmut, Avdiivka and Lyman had emerged as fighting hotspots.
Ukrainian forces struck Russian-controlled areas in the south, officials there said, including the strategic Antonivskiy bridge in the southern city of Kherson. An artery for Russian military supplies, the bridge has been closed in recent weeks because of earlier shelling. Plans to reopen it on Wednesday were now shelved, said Kirill Stremousov, deputy head of the Moscow-appointed administration of the Kherson region.
Meanwhile, one of the ships that left Ukraine on Friday under a deal to unblock grain supplies and stave off a global food crisis arrived in Turkey, the first loaded vessel to reach its destination. The Turkey-flagged Polarnet was laden with 12,000 tons of corn.
“This sends a message of hope to every family in the Middle East, Africa, and Asia: Ukraine won't abandon you,” Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba tweeted. “If Russia sticks to its obligations, the `grain corridor' will keep maintaining global food security.”
Twelve ships have now been authorized to sail under the grain deal between Ukraine and Russia, which was brokered by Turkey and the United Nations - 10 outbound and two inbound. Some 322,000 metric tons of agricultural products have left Ukrainian ports, the bulk of it corn but also sunflower oil and soya.
Four ships that left Ukraine on Sunday were expected to anchor near Istanbul on Monday evening for inspection to make sure they are carrying only food.
The first cargo ship to leave Ukraine, the Sierra Leone-flagged Razoni, which left Odesa on Aug. 1, hit a snag with delivery, however. It was heading for Lebanon with 26,000 metric tons of corn for chicken feed but the corn's buyer in Lebanon refused to accept the cargo, since it was delivered much later than its contract, Ukraine's embassy in Beirut said.
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Kareem Chehayeb in Beirut, Mehmet Guzel in Derince, Turkey, and Andrew Wilks in Istanbul contributed.
From London, to Mildmay, Collingwood and St. Thomas, here are some highlights of Friday night and Saturday morning's northern lights display.
For decades, North Bay, Ontario's water supply has harboured chemicals associated with liver and developmental issues, cancer and complications with pregnancy. It's far from the only city with that problem.
The Netherlands' contestant in the Eurovision Song Contest was dramatically expelled from competition hours before Saturday's final of the pan-continental pop competition, which has been rattled by protests over the participation of Israel.
The rolling hills leading to the hamlet of Rosebud are dotted with sprawling farms and cattle pastures -- and a sign sporting a simple message: No Race Track.
An evacuation alert was issued for two Wood Buffalo communities Friday night, as crews battled an out-of-control wildfire near Fort McMurray.
Evan Bouchard scored 5:38 into overtime and the Edmonton Oilers bounced back for a 4-3 win over the Vancouver Canucks in the second round of the Stanley Cup playoffs on Friday.
Irresponsibly using a credit card can land you in financial trouble, but personal finance columnist Christopher Liew says when used properly, it can be a powerful wealth-building tool that can help grow your credit profile and create new opportunities.
A cyclist turned herself in and received a fine after striking a four-year-old girl who was crossing the street to catch a school bus.
Where you live plays a big factor in what you pay at the grocery store. And while it's no secret the same item may have a different price depending on the store, city or province, we wanted to see just how big the differences are, and why.
A family of fifth generation farmers from Ituna, Sask. are trying to find answers after discovering several strange objects lying on their land.
A Listowel, Ont. man, drafted by the Hamilton Tigercats last week, is also getting looks from the NFL, despite only playing 27 games of football in his life.
A small Ajax dessert shop that recently received a glowing review from celebrity food critic Keith Lee is being forced to move after a zoning complaint was made following the social media influencer’s visit last month.
The Canada Science and Technology Museum is inviting visitors to explore their poop. A new exhibition opens at the Ottawa museum on Friday called, 'Oh Crap! Rethinking human waste.'
The Regina Police Service says it is the first in Saskatchewan and possibly Canada to implement new technology in its detention facility that will offer real-time monitoring of detainees’ vital health metrics.
The stakes have been set for a bet between Vancouver and Edmonton's mayors on who will win Round 2 of the Stanley Cup playoffs.
A grieving mother is hosting a helmet drive in the hopes of protecting children on Manitoba First Nations from a similar tragedy that killed her daughter.
A chicken farmer near Mattawa made an 'eggstraordinary' find Friday morning when she discovered one of her hens laid an egg close to three times the size of an average large chicken egg.
A P.E.I. lighthouse and a New Brunswick river are being honoured in a Canada Post series.