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Canada wildfires are leading to air-quality alerts in US. Here’s how to stay safe

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 13:25:12 GMT

Canada is dealing with a series of intense wildfires that have spread from the western provinces to Quebec, with hundreds of forest fires burning. The smoke has traveled into the United States, resulting in a number of air quality alerts issued since May.On Tuesday, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency issued a poor air quality alert for New England, a day after parts of Illinois, Wisconsin and Minnesota received a similar advisory. Last week, U.S. officials as far south as Maryland, Baltimore, Virginia and Pennsylvania reported being impacted by the wildfires.Here’s a summary of what’s being evaluated and some suggested precautions:WHAT’S HAPPENING?Smoke from Canada’s wildfires has been moving into the United States since last month. The most recent fires near Quebec have been burning for at least several days.The EPA said hazy skies, reduced visibility and the odor of burning wood are likely, and that the smoke will linger for a few days in New England....

Former New Jersey Gov. Christie kicks off 2024 Republican presidential bid with swipes at Trump

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 13:25:12 GMT

MANCHESTER, N.H. (AP) — Republican former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie kicked off his presidential campaign Tuesday evening, promising to be the only candidate in a crowded GOP primary field willing to directly take on former President Donald Trump. Christie, who also ran for president in 2016, began his bid under the slogan “Because the truth matters” with a town hall in New Hampshire, which holds the nation’s first Republican primary following Iowa’s leadoff caucuses. After losing the nomination to Trump seven years ago, the former governor and federal prosecutor went on to become a close off-and-on adviser before breaking with the former president over his refusal to accept the results of the 2020 election.“Donald Trump made us smaller by dividing us even further and pitting us one against the other,” Christie said, suggesting that the former president was part of a broader political effort to “paint all Republicans with just one brush.”He added that President Joe B...

Analyst worried as union for 7,000-plus B.C. port workers to hold strike vote

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 13:25:12 GMT

VANCOUVER — A global trade analyst says a potential strike for more than 7,000 terminal cargo movers in ports throughout British Columbia could have dire consequences for not only the Canadian economy, but globally as well.International Longshore and Warehouse Union Canada, which represents workers who load and unload cargo at port terminals in cities such as Vancouver and Prince Rupert, said in a bulletin that its negotiating committee has authorized a strike vote.Union president Rob Ashton said in the bulletin that the vote will take place June 9 and 10.Neither the union nor the BC Maritime Employers Association have responded to a request for comment on the possible job action. The employers association, which represents 49 private-sector employers in more than 30 ports across B.C., said in a statement on its website that it will continue to negotiate to reach “a fair and balanced deal” that ensures proper compensation and the competitiveness of B.C.’s ports.Mar...

Reward offered for information on who killed endangered Hawaiian monk seal

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 13:25:12 GMT

HONOLULU (AP) — U.S. authorities on Tuesday offered a $5,000 reward for information on who killed a Hawaiian monk seal after one of the critically endangered animals was found dead on Oahu this year.The female seal known as Malama was found dead on March 12 at Ohikilolo, a spot between Keaau Beach Park and Makua Valley, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said in a news release. A post-mortem investigation found the cause of death to be “blunt force trauma.” National experts on marine mammal radiology and forensics concluded the animal was intentionally killed, the release said.Last year, Malama was treated for malnutrition at the Marine Mammal Center’s Hawaiian monk seal hospital on the Big Island. She was released in January, after which she was in good condition and displaying normal seal behavior.The Hawaiian monk seal is one of the most endangered seal species in the world. About 1,570 of the animals are in the wild. About 1,200 seals live in the remote No...

Democrats: Lives could be lost due to Republican walkout in Oregon Legislature

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 13:25:12 GMT

SALEM, Ore. (AP) — Oregon Democratic lawmakers stood on the steps of the state Capitol Tuesday and implored Republicans, who have been boycotting the Senate for over a month, to return and vote on bills, saying lives are literally at stake.Several statehouses around the nation, including Montana and Tennessee, have been ideological battlegrounds this year. Republicans in the Oregon statehouse conducted walkouts in 2019, 2020 and 2021 to deny quora, but this one is the most serious yet, threatening hundreds of bills and the approval of state budgets for the next two years.Neither side is budging on a bill on protections for abortion and transgender care, with Democrats saying it isn’t negotiable and minority Republicans insisting it die or be changed. It’s down to a matter of which side blinks first. If there’s no compromise well before the session is constitutionally required to end by June 25, the hundreds of bills that haven’t passed both the House and Sena...

Abortion providers sue Kansas over longstanding waiting period, new medication rule

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 13:25:12 GMT

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Abortion providers sued Kansas on Tuesday over a law enacted this year and existing restrictions, including a decades-old requirement that patients wait 24 hours after first seeing a provider to terminate their pregnancies.Besides the waiting period, the lawsuit challenges a law set to take effect July 1 that will require providers to tell patients that a medication abortion can be stopped using a regimen that major medical groups have called unproven and potentially dangerous. The lawsuit, filed in state district court in Johnson County in the Kansas City area, argues that Kansas has created a “Biased Counseling Scheme” designed to discourage patients from getting abortions and to stigmatize patients who terminate their pregnancies. The lawsuit contends that the requirements have become “increasingly absurd and invasive” over time and spread medical misinformation. Kansas voters in August 2022 decisively affirmed abortion rights, refusing to overturn a state Sup...

US appeals court rejects lifetime gun ban for nonviolent criminals

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 13:25:12 GMT

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — A U.S. appeals court ruled Tuesday that nonviolent offenders should not be subject to lifetime gun bans, the latest fallout from a recent Supreme Court decision that instructs judges to look to history and tradition to weigh the constitutionality of gun control laws.In an 11-4 vote, the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals sided with a man who had pleaded guilty to misstating his income to receive about $2,500 in food stamps for his family in 1995. While the case involved a misdemeanor, and Bryan Range received only probation, he faced up to five years in prison. That potential penalty triggered a Pennsylvania ban on gun possession for people facing at least a year in prison. The 11-4 majority — reversing a lower court decision in the wake of the Supreme Court’s Bruen decision — looked to gun laws dating to the 18th century for guidance and found none that contemplated lifetime weapons bans for nonviolent criminals. Even rebels who took part in the 1787 tax up...

Wildfire roundup: A look at what’s burning across the country and who’s affected

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 13:25:12 GMT

Federal Emergency Preparedness Minister Bill Blair has said images of wildfires burning across Canada are some of the most severe ever witnessed in the country and the forecast for the next few months indicates the potential for continued higher-than-normal fire activity.The Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Centre says there are 415 fires currently burning. About 2,285 fires have burned 37,000 square kilometres so far this yearHere’s a look at the current wildfire situation as of Tuesday afternoon:NOVA SCOTIAThere are five active wildfires. The province has recorded 212 so far this year, about double the number in an average year. About 267 square kilometres have burned.A fire that broke out at the end of May in suburban Halifax destroyed about 200 structures, including 151 homes. About 16,500 people were initially forced from their homes and the city says about 4,100 residents remain displaced.A fire in Shelburne County in southwestern Nova Scotia, considered the largest in t...

Giuliani denies claims he coerced woman to have sex, says she’s trying to stir ‘media frenzy’

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 13:25:12 GMT

NEW YORK (AP) — Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani says a woman’s lawsuit alleging he coerced her into sex and owes her nearly $2 million in unpaid wages is “a large stretch of the imagination” filled with exaggerations and salacious details “to create a media frenzy.”Giuliani said in court papers that he had a consensual relationship with Noelle Dunphy “for a few months” in 2019, during his time as former President Donald Trump’s personal lawyer, but denied she ever worked for him or that he pressured her into sex.Dunphy’s lawsuit, filed last month in state court in New York, “contains a blunderbuss of contradictory allegations,” Giuliani said in his written response last Friday. Her “singular objective” is to defame him, he said.Giuliani wants a judge to throw out the lawsuit. If that doesn’t happen, he wants what he described as the most “frivolous, inflammatory, and unnecessary” accusations removed from the case. He’s also asking for Dunphy to be penalized by the court for...

'We're definitely not alone': Whistleblower claims U.S. recovered spaceships, aliens

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 13:25:12 GMT

WASHINGTON (Nexstar) – A whistle blower says he handed over classified evidence proving that a secret government program has been recovering spaceships and aliens for decades.A former intelligence and military official, David Grusch, says the secret government program has recovered non-human space craft.“We're definitely not alone,” Grusch said. “When you recover something that's either landed or crashed, sometimes you encounter dead pilots. Believe or not, as fantastical as that sounds, it's true.”The lawmakers Nexstar spoke with say they're not aware of a secret UFO recovery program.“I am a defense appropriator, I am part of classified briefings -- this is nothing that has come up,” Rep. Pete Aguilar (D-CA) said.Other lawmakers say they will wait for more information.“We'll have to listen to the facts,” Rep. Don Bacon (R-NE) said.Rep. Dean Phillips (D-MN) added, “My first reaction is probably like everybody watching, which is wow. And secondly, I’ll believe it when I see it.”Grusc...