LIVE B.C. seeks ban on using drugs in 'all public spaces,' shifting approach to decriminalization
The B.C. government is moving to have drug use banned in "all public spaces," marking a major shift in the province's approach to decriminalization.
Americans fully vaccinated against COVID-19 should go back to wearing masks in indoor public places in regions where the coronavirus is spreading rapidly, U.S. health authorities said on Tuesday.
In a toughening of guidance issued earlier this month, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) also recommended all students, teachers and staff at schools for kindergarten through 12th grade wear masks regardless of whether they were vaccinated.
U.S. coronavirus cases have been rising due to the highly contagious Delta variant, which emerged in India but has quickly spread and now accounts for more than 80% of U.S. coronavirus cases.
U.S. President Joe Biden said that increased vaccination and mask wearing would help the United States avoid the pandemic lockdowns, shutdowns and school closures that the country faced in 2020. “We are not going back to that,” Biden said.
The CDC said that 63.4% of U.S. counties had transmission rates high enough to warrant indoor masking and should immediately resume the policy. Manhattan, Los Angeles and San Francisco meet the transmission criteria as does the entire state of Florida, but Chicago and Detroit do not.
American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten praised the new CDC mask guidance in a statement, calling it "a necessary precaution until children under 12 can receive a COVID vaccine and more Americans over 12 get vaccinated."
The CDC's previous guidance for schools only called for unvaccinated students to wear masks.
However, the new CDC recommendations are not binding and many Americans, especially in Republican-leaning states, may choose not to follow them. At least eight states bar schools from requiring masks.
Dr. Isaac Weisfuse, a medical epidemiologist at Cornell University Public Health, said the change was warranted but believes resistance was likely among some people. "I think we will get blowback because I think people might view it as backtracking," he said.
The United States leads the world in the daily average number of new infections, accounting for one in every nine cases reported worldwide each day. The seven-day average for new cases has been rising sharply and stands at 57,126, still about a quarter of the pandemic peak.
Two months ago, when the CDC announced that fully vaccinated people could shed their face coverings, COVID-19 was on the decline. Vaccinations have since slowed dramatically and only 58% of people eligible are fully vaccinated.
New studies show that fully vaccinated people who become infected carry as much virus as unvaccinated people do, suggesting they may be able to transmit the infection to others, CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky told reporters on a telephone briefing.
"We felt it was important for people to understand that they could pass the disease onto someone else," she said.
On Monday, the Biden administration confirmed it will not lift any existing international travel restrictions, citing the rising number of COVID-19 cases and the expectation that they will continue to rise in the weeks ahead.
(Reporting by David Shepardson; Additional reporting by Nandita Bose; Editing by Rosalba O'Brien, Bill Berkrot and Cynthia Osterman)
The B.C. government is moving to have drug use banned in "all public spaces," marking a major shift in the province's approach to decriminalization.
The Canadian Transportation Agency has hit a record high of more than 71,000 complaints in a backlog. The quasi-judicial regulator and tribunal tasked with settling disputes between customers and the airlines says the backlog is growing because the number of incoming complaints keeps increasing.
An orca whale calf that has been stranded in a B.C. lagoon for weeks after her pregnant mother died swam out on her own early Friday morning.
After the Assembly of First Nations' national chief complained to Air Canada about how staffers treated her and her ceremonial headdress on a flight this week, she says the airline responded by offering a 15 per cent discount on her next flight.
Sophie Gregoire Trudeau says there is 'still so much love' between her and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, as they navigate their post-separation relationship co-parenting their three children.
An American Airlines flight attendant was indicted Thursday after authorities said he tried to secretly record video of a 14-year-old girl using an airplane bathroom last September.
Philadelphia 76ers All-Star centre Joel Embiid has been diagnosed with Bell’s palsy, a form of facial paralysis he says has affected him since before the play-in tournament.
The current overall public health risk posed by the H5N1 bird flu virus is low, the World Health Organization said on Friday, but urged countries to stay alert for cases of animal-to-human transmission.
An idyllic 453-acre private island is up for sale off the west coast of Scotland and it comes with sandy beaches, puffins galore, seven houses, a pub, a helipad and a flock of black-faced sheep.
Mounties in Nanaimo, B.C., say two late-night revellers are lucky their allegedly drunken antics weren't reported to police after security cameras captured the men trying to steal a heavy sign from a downtown business.
A property tax bill is perplexing a small townhouse community in Fergus, Ont.
When identical twin sisters Kim and Michelle Krezonoski were invited to compete against some of the world’s most elite female runners at last week’s Boston Marathon, they were in disbelief.
The giant stone statues guarding the Lions Gate Bridge have been dressed in custom Vancouver Canucks jerseys as the NHL playoffs get underway.
A local Oilers fan is hoping to see his team cut through the postseason, so he can cut his hair.
A family from Laval, Que. is looking for answers... and their father's body. He died on vacation in Cuba and authorities sent someone else's body back to Canada.
A former educational assistant is calling attention to the rising violence in Alberta's classrooms.
The federal government says its plan to increase taxes on capital gains is aimed at wealthy Canadians to achieve “tax fairness.”
At 6'8" and 350 pounds, there is nothing typical about UBC offensive lineman Giovanni Manu, who was born in Tonga and went to high school in Pitt Meadows.