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CAIRO -- Sudan's President Omar al-Bashir on Friday declared a state of emergency for a year and disbanded the government amid deadly protests. Al-Bashir -- who seized power in a 1989 coup-- also said that he will postpone pushing for constitutional amendments to allow him to seek a third term in office. Source

EDMONTON -- Alberta Education Minister David Eggen says the province will ban the use of seclusion or time-out rooms for students in schools. Problems with seclusion rooms surfaced last September when the parents of an autistic boy filed a lawsuit against the province. Source

HALIFAX -- Federal officials are closer to bringing as many as 10 relatives of a grieving Syrian refugee to Nova Scotia, as Halifax residents prepared to gather Saturday for the funeral of her seven children who died in a fast-moving house fire. Source

A Toronto-area settlement worker could face jail time in the United States after attempting to smuggle a failed refugee claimant across the border in the trunk of her car. Court documents show Donna Pham pleaded guilty this week to one count of conspiracy to defraud the U.S. Source

WASHINGTON -- Special counsel Robert Mueller's report on the Russia investigation is not expected to be delivered to the Justice Department next week, a senior department official told The Associated Press on Friday. The official could not discuss the matter publicly and spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity. Source

A police force in southwestern Ontario says it will start releasing the names of those charged with buying sex in a bid to curb human trafficking. The announcement came at a meeting of the Police Services Board in London, Ont. Source

OTTAWA -- Eight days after Chinese authorities imprisoned Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor, a senior Canadian foreign ministry official urged Canadian students to apply for a program to study in China. Sarah Taylor, the director-general of the north-Asia bureau at Global Affairs Canada, made the pitch for the 45-year-old Canada-China Scholarship Exchange Program during a Dec. Source

MOSCOW -- A Russian court ruled Friday to keep a former U.S. Marine held for alleged spying jailed in Moscow for another three months. Michigan resident Paul Whelan was arrested at a hotel in the Russian capital at the end of December. Source

An Ontario woman charged with criminal negligence in the death of a 20-month-old baby has been identified as the girl’s mother. Waterloo Regional Police were called to a home in Kitchener at around noon on Thursday to reports of a child in distress. Source

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