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Maura Healey ending Massachusetts COVID-19 public-health emergency, vaccine mandate in May

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:34:00 GMT

Gov. Maura Healey is ending the state’s COVID-19 public-health emergency and vaccine mandate on May 11, coinciding with the feds’ corresponding move.Healey said in a press release Wednesday morning that the announcement two months in advance “allows additional time for impacted organizations to prepare for the end of the public health emergency.”“Thanks to the hard work of our health care providers and communities, we’ve made important progress in the fight against COVID-19,” Healey said in a statement. “We know that we have the tools to manage this virus – vaccines, masking, testing, getting treatments and staying home when sick – and we’ve reached the point where we can update our guidance to reflect where we are now.”Throwing a bone across the aisle to her predecessor Gov. Charlie Baker, as the Democrat Healey has taken to doing with the Republican, she continued on to say that “I’d also like to acknowledge the leadership of Governor Baker and ...

Future NASA moonwalkers to sport sleeker spacesuits

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:34:00 GMT

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — Moonwalking astronauts will have sleeker, more flexible spacesuits that come in different sizes when they step onto the lunar surface later this decade.Exactly what that looks like remained under wraps. The company designing the next-generation spacesuits, Axiom Space, said Wednesday that it plans to have new versions for training purposes for NASA later this summer. The moonsuits will be white like they were during NASA’s Apollo program more than a half-century ago, according to the company. That’s so they can reflect heat and keep future moonwalkers cool.The suits will provide greater flexibility and more protection from the moon’s harsh environment, and will come in a wider range of sizes, according to the Houston-based company. NASA awarded Axiom Space a $228.5 million contract to provide the outfits for the first moon landing in more than 50 years. The space agency is targeting late 2025 at the earliest to land two astronauts on the moon’s south pole...

1 dead, 1 missing after southern Utah canyon floods

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:34:00 GMT

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — One man is dead and another is still missing after floodwaters poured into a slot canyon in southern Utah, endangering three groups of hikers who had to be hoisted out via helicopter Tuesday.Kane County Sheriff’s Lt. Allen Alldredge said the man who was found dead and the man who remains missing were among a group of three hiking south to Lees Ferry across the Utah-Arizona border. The third man was rescued and taken to the hospital, where he was being treated for hypothermia and bodily injury after days of exposure.Alldredge said authorities received a call Monday from the spouse of a hiker who had not returned home from a hike they began Friday. The hikers were on a multiday trek from Wire Pass to Lees Ferry through Buckskin Gulch’s sandstone features that includes multiple narrow slot canyons.Authorities did not release any of the hiker’s names. Alldredge said the dead man was from the Tampa, Florida area.The “atmospheric river” storms...

Controversial former city councillor Giorgio Mammoliti to run for mayor

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:34:00 GMT

Former longtime Toronto city councillor Giorgio Mammoliti confirms with CityNews that he will run for mayor in the upcoming byelection.Mammoliti held his North York riding for more than two decades before losing his seat in 2018 election.He then made a failed bid for mayor of Wasaga Beach.The controversial Mammoliti was known for making headlines including when he called for a city-wide 11 p.m. curfew for youth. He also proposed arming bylaw officers.A byelection to replace John Tory is officially set for June 26. Tory stepped down after admitting to an affair with a younger, former staffer.Several other candidates have already thrown their hats in the ring, including Gil Penalosa, who finished second to Tory is the last election, and another former councillor, Rob Davis.It’s not the first time Mammoliti has tried to secure Toronto’s top job. In 2010, he unsuccessfully ran for mayor.After campaigning without exceeding single digits in public opinion polls, Mammoliti anno...

Mexican president floats fentanyl ban, faults US drug policy

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:34:00 GMT

MEXICO CITY (AP) — Mexico’s president called anti-drug policies in the U.S. a failure Wednesday and proposed a ban on using fentanyl in medicine — even though little of the drug crosses from hospitals into the illegal market.President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has grappled in recent days with the issue of fentanyl, which has become a major security concern. López Obrador has denied that Mexico produces fentanyl, which causes about 70,000 U.S. overdose deaths per year.U.S. authorities estimate that most illegal fentanyl is produced in clandestine Mexican labs using Chinese precursor chemicals. Relatively little of the illegal market comes from diverting medicinal fentanyl used as anesthesia in surgeries and other procedures.But López Obrador said he would ask doctors and experts whether all use of fentanyl by doctors could be ended, as well, to reduce illicit use.“We are also going to ask that medical use be ended in the United States, as well,” López Obrador said.There have been o...

Federal and Alberta governments to study oilsands tailings leak communication

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:34:00 GMT

EDMONTON — The Alberta and federal governments say they will work together to understand what happened around public notifications of toxic seepage at an oilsands tailings pond.Alberta environment minister Sonya Savage and her federal counterpart Steven Guilbeault discussed on Tuesday night the seepage and leak from the Kearl oilsands mine.The seepage was discovered in May, but neither politician was told about it until nine months later.Area First Nations were also not updated after initial notification of discoloured water being found on the site, about 70 kilometres north of Fort McMurray, Alta. Savage says in a news release that her department has sent officials to the site to conduct independent water sampling, in addition to monitoring already in place. She says Alberta has not seen evidence of waterway or drinking water contamination.This report by The Canadian Press was first published March 15, 2023. The Canadian Press

Victoria group lends a helping hand to Ukraine, setting up prosthetic clinics

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:34:00 GMT

Nick Dechev was startled when an air raid siren blared across a medical site in the western Ukrainian city of Lviv last month.The resident of Victoria, B.C., was in Lviv setting up one of two prosthetic clinics he hoped would soon help the growing number of amputees across the country.But what surprised him the most was how the people working alongside him in the clinic who heard the alert, glanced at their phones and then carried on as if nothing had happened. Their indifference eased his mind, he said.“There was a risk, but I just felt that the probability (of an airstrike) is very small and then the importance of doing the work was so large.”Dechev is the founder and chief technical officer for the Victoria Hand Project, a non-profit organization based in B.C.’s capital that provides low-cost, fully functioning 3D-printed prosthetic arms to amputees in resource-poor countries.The group’s Hands for Ukraine project was launched shortly after Russia invaded U...

Arrest warrant issued for Oshawa man wanted for stabbing 2 women, 1 fatally

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:34:00 GMT

A Canada-wide warrant has been issued for an Oshawa man wanted for stabbing two women, one fatally.On March 12, around 4 a.m., Durham Regional Police were called to an address on Simcoe Street following reports that a person was armed.Officers arrived to find two women suffering from stab wounds. Both victims were rushed to a Toronto trauma centre, where one woman died from her injuries. She was later identified as 26-year-old Katie Kainz.The second woman remains in the hospital with critical injuries but is stable.Durham police have issued a Canada-wide warrant for an Oshawa man after two women were stabbed, one fatally. Photo: Durham police.Police have issued a Canada-wide warrant for 37-year-old Adam Odette of Oshawa, who is wanted on second-degree murder and attempted murder.Investigators are urging Odette to turn himself in, adding that anyone found guilty of assisting him in evading arrest will face charges.A man with the same name was arrested and charged in separate violent ...

Garcetti India nomination wins critical test vote in Senate

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:34:00 GMT

WASHINGTON (AP) — Former Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti appeared headed for confirmation Wednesday as the next U.S. ambassador to India, 20 months after he was initially selected for the post and amid fallout from a sexual harassment scandal involving a onetime top adviser.The nomination cleared a key test vote in the Democratic-controlled Senate, 52-42. The vote unfolded with some suspense, as it wasn’t clear the progressive Democrat would have enough support to advance. But he was able to win over a handful of Republican senators, putting him over the top. A final vote was scheduled for later in the day.The nomination for the prominent diplomatic post has languished in the Senate for 20 months, after President Joe Biden first named him in July 2021.The vacancy in the ambassadorship has left a significant diplomatic gap for the administration at a time of rising global tensions, including China’s increasingly assertive presence in the Pacific region and Russia’s war with Ukr...

Powerful boss of casino union leaving post in Atlantic City

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:34:00 GMT

ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. (AP) — He’s led Atlantic City casino workers through three strikes, been arrested at protests nearly 10 times, and won workers including housekeepers, cocktail servers and others the best contract they had ever had.Now Bob McDevitt is stepping down as president of the main union for Atlantic City casino workers, Local 54 of Unite Here, after 26 years as one of the most powerful people in Atlantic City, able to bring the industry to its knees when he felt workers were being treated unfairly.It is a power that he has used repeatedly; sometimes, the mere threat of a strike prompted casinos to sign a new contract.“We represent people who traditionally have not been what you would consider high-wage workers — housekeepers, bartenders, cocktail servers, people who clean public areas,” he said. “It’s one thing to work as a waiter over the summer while you’re in college; it’s quite another to try to support yourself and a family on that. That̵...