Yosemite National Park fire triggers state of emergency in California
A fast-moving bush fire - the size of 144 football fields - has forced thousands of Californians to flee, as a state of emergency is declared.
Many displaced Syrians responded to harsh border controls by passing through permeable borders, using alternative routes and relying upon the use of smugglers and social networks.
About 1,200 people have been driven out of their homes in parts of Valenicia, Spain as firefighters in the southeast try to contain three separate wildfires.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Planned Parenthood, the nation's leading reproductive health care provider and abortion rights advocacy organization, plans to spend a record $50 million ahead of November's midterm elections, pouring money into contests where access to abortion will be on the ballot. The effort, which breaks the group's previous $45 million spending record set in 2020, comes months after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, the landmark 1973 case that created a constitutional right to hav
SANTA FE, N.M. (AP) — Cowboys for Trump founder Couy Griffin is fighting to keep his seat as a New Mexico county commissioner as he faces possible removal and disqualification from public office for his participation in last year’s insurrection at the U.S. Capitol. Griffin was previously convicted of a misdemeanor for entering Capitol grounds on Jan. 6, 2021. He was sentenced to 14 days and given credit for time served. Three residents of Santa Fe and Los Alamos counties filed a lawsuit seeking
BUCHA, Ukraine (AP) — Former U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called on the world Tuesday to honor civilians who were killed when Russian ground forces tried to invade Ukraine's capital and eventually retreated from the area surrounding Kyiv. Ban, a former South Korean diplomat who served as secretary-general between 2007 and 2016, visited Bucha, a city northwest of the Ukrainian capital where hundreds of civilians were found dead after the Russian withdrawal in late March. “It’s hard to expre
Ontario is seeing far fewer forest fires this year than the 10-year average, and only a fraction of what it experienced last summer, when fires tore through a record amount of land in the province, according to the provincial government. There have been 179 fires so far this year, with 2,416 hectares of land burned, Evan Lizotte, a fire information officer with the Ministry of Natural Resources, said in a recent interview. That's compared with the 10-year average of 669 fires and 174,196 hectare
PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — The day after Oregon Supreme Court Chief Justice Martha Walters fired all nine members of the state commission that oversees public defense, she said Tuesday that she was appointing four new commissioners and reappointing five commissioners from the previous group. Walters had fired the commission members out of frustration that hundreds of defendants charged with crimes and who cannot afford an attorney have been unable to obtain public defenders to represent them. “This c
Musk has a history of being unconventional, posting irreverent tweets. Below are some other tweets by Musk - who has more than 103 million followers - which have taken investors, Twitter users, Twitter's board and the rest of his audience by surprise. May 13, 2022: "Twitter deal temporarily on hold pending details supporting calculation that spam/fake accounts do indeed represent less than 5% of users."
WASHINGTON (AP) — A year after America's tumultuous and deadly withdrawal from Afghanistan, assessments of its impact are divided — and largely along partisan lines. Critics slam the August 2021 evacuation of more than 120,000 American citizens, Afghans and others as poorly planned and badly executed. They say the complete withdrawal of U.S. forces opened the door to a resurgence of al-Qaida and Islamic State militants in the country. And the exit, they say, signaled the United States' lack of c
Public Health is contact tracing to try to limit the spread of monkeypox in New Brunswick. The province's first confirmed case of the virus, announced last Friday, had not travelled out of New Brunswick, said Dr. Yves Léger, the deputy chief medical officer of health. This "reasonably" means the person got the virus either from a New Brunswick resident or somebody travelling in the province, Léger said in an interview Tuesday on Shift. To limit the spread of the virus, Public Health has been fol
Canadian North's direct flight between Iqaluit and Toronto will be ending after the September long weekend, about a month earlier than expected. "We were planning to run it through September, and we were keeping a sharp eye on it as well, just if there was the volume we would maintain the route," said Michael Rodyniuk, president and chief executive officer of Canadian North. He said the number of passengers taking the flight was "a little lighter than expected" and the company is reallocating th
Robert Brown never thought he'd be living like this — all of his possessions crammed into an old, 30-foot motorhome, moving from place to place in search of some place to rent or park his RV. Brown and his partner Mathie Franchuck moved to Vernon, B.C., one month ago on a promise of a place to park their RV on private land, which didn't pan out, Brown said. Now, they are among a growing number of people living in motorhomes and vans on streets in the north Okanagan city. "It's embarrassing. You
Quebec's workplace health and safety board has ordered a food-processing company north of Montreal to reimburse two temporary foreign workers for charging them excess rent. The board told the company in July it had to pay the workers $3,800 each in housing costs it had deducted from their paycheques since May 2021. The workers say that last spring, the company asked them to sign a contract raising their rent from $225 to $300 per pay period. A number of the 48 temporary foreign workers from Mada
While inflation may be hurting ordinary Quebecers' pocketbooks, it's done the opposite for a provincial government that has seen its projected deficit shrink by billions of dollars, according to a report released Monday ahead of the fall election campaign. The government's projected finances are "plausible" despite global economic uncertainty that threatens to darken the rosy picture, said auditor general Guylaine Leclerc, who was tasked with reviewing a pre-election financial report by Quebec's
BEIJING/TAIPEI (Reuters) -China on Tuesday imposed sanctions including an entry ban on seven Taiwanese officials and lawmakers it accused of being "independence diehards", drawing condemnation from the democratically governed island. The sanctions come after U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi visited Taiwan this month, a trip that China said had sent a wrong signal to what it views as pro-independence forces. China considers Taiwan its own territory and not a separate country.
One-quarter of front-line employees surveyed at Canada's border agency in March 2020 said they had directly witnessed a colleague discriminate against a traveller in the previous two years. Of these respondents, 71 per cent suggested the discrimination was based, in full or in part, on the traveller's race, and just over three-quarters of respondents cited the traveller's national or ethnic origin. The figures are drawn from a survey that was conducted as part of an internal Canada Border Servic
MONTREAL — The head of a union representing Quebec junior college teachers says the COVID-19 pandemic appears to have negatively impacted students' basic study skills. Youri Blanchet of the Fédération de l’enseignement collégial says teachers are noticing that students seem to be struggling with tasks such as taking notes, paying attention in class and completing assignments. Blanchet says the COVID-19 pandemic forced schools to close for weeks at a time and shifted education online, which he sa
Louise Boudrias, the Gatineau city councillor for the district of Parc-de-la-Montagne-Saint-Raymond, died on Sunday at the age of 62. Born in Aylmer, Boudrias had been a Gatineau councillor since 2014, winning her last election with nearly 70 per cent of the vote. Boudrias was a former teacher at La Cité collégiale in Ottawa, and a former director of Collège Merici in Quebec City. In January, she withdrew from public life for an indefinite period after being diagnosed with cancer. During her tim
The Halifax Regional Municipality is making drinking water available to people whose wells are going dry. Each household can receive two litres per person per day, plus one litre per day per pet, and residents can collect one week's supply at a time. Beginning Aug. 16, residents can get drinkable water at six different fire stations each Tuesday from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m., except station 38 and 42, which have different hours: Station 23 – 5543 Highway 7, Chezzetcook. Station 29 – 28975 Highway 7, Mos