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Climate change made worst Quebec fire weather twice as likely, more intense: study

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:16:52 GMT

Climate change has made summers like the kind that led to Quebec’s disastrous wildfire season at least seven times more likely to happen again, says a new scientific analysis.The study by the U.K.-based World Weather Attribution group, released Tuesday, says greenhouse gas emissions made the province’s overall fire weather about 50 per cent more conducive to fire between May and June. The very worst days were twice as likely to happen and were about 20 per cent worse than they would have been without current levels of carbon in the air.  The finding should alert governments to the need to reduce emissions and prepare for what’s ahead, said one researcher.“Fire weather risk is increasing due to climate change,” said Dorothy Heinrich, one of the report’s 17 co-authors. “Adaptation strategies are going to be required to reduce the drivers of risk and decrease their impacts.”Wildfires have occurred in almost every province and territory th...

Texas Supreme Court denies request to delay new election law despite lawsuit challenging it

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:16:52 GMT

HOUSTON (AP) — A new Republican-backed Texas law that dictates how elections will be run in the Democratic stronghold of Houston and its surrounding county will take effect as scheduled next month despite a lawsuit seeking to overturn it, the state Supreme Court ruled Tuesday.Officials in Harris County, which is the state’s most populous, had sought to put the law, which abolishes its elections administrator’s office, on hold. Last week, a judge in Austin temporarily blocked enforcement of the law after calling it unconstitutional. The judge’s order was short-lived, as the state attorney general’s office appealed the decision to the Texas Supreme Court.In its brief order, the high court denied Harris County’s request to stop the law from taking effect Sept. 1. It also ordered oral arguments in the lawsuit to take place Nov. 28.The new law stemmed from problems during November’s elections in Harris County, including paper ballot shortages and delayed poll openings. It wou...

Solar panels to surround Dulles Airport will deliver power to 37,000 homes

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:16:52 GMT

CHANTILLY, Va. (AP) — Travelers taking off and landing at Dulles International Airport outside the nation’s capital will soon see an array of 200,000 solar panels laid out near the runways — the largest renewable energy project ever built at a U.S. airport.Dominion Energy and the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority ceremonially broke ground on the 835-acre project Tuesday.The solar farm is just a small part of a huge push by Dominion to add 16,000 megawatts of solar capacity — enough to power 4 million homes — by 2035 as it seeks to comply with a state law requiring 100% of its non-nuclear energy production to be zero emission by 2045.Rural counties in Virginia, though, are pushing back against the solar expansion, as residents complain about the loss of farmland, wrecked viewsheds and construction noise. In recent months, Henry, Pittsylvania, Clarke and Shenandoah counties have all taken steps to restrict or regulate new solar projects.Bev McKay, a supervisor in Clarke Count...

Wildfires torment Greece. California digs out from Hilary. What to know in extreme weather now

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:16:52 GMT

A nightmarish summer of wildfires for Greece took its deadliest turn yet on Tuesday when firefighters found the burned bodies of 18 people near the city of Alexandroupolis.A hint of the scope of the fire can be seen in this image by Associated Press photographer Achilleas Chiras. The dead were believed to have been migrants who had crossed the nearby border with Turkey before falling victim to a major fire that was among dozens across the country being whipped by gale-force winds. Their deaths came after two people had died in fires Monday elsewhere in the country.Spain continues to struggle with fires, too, including one on the tourist island of Tenerife that authorities said was arson. It’s forced the evacuation of more than 12,000 people. And in Canada, firefighters held back fires from destroying more structures in a scenic region of British Columbia in what one official called the most difficult days fighting fire in the province’s history.Here’s what else is happen...

Man, 86, accused of assuming dead brother’s identity in 1965 convicted of several charges

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:16:52 GMT

BANGOR, Maine (AP) — An 86-year-old man accused of assuming his brother’s identity decades ago and using it to double dip on Social Security benefits has been convicted of several charges, caught by facial recognition technology that matched the same face to two different identities, authorities say.Napoleon Gonzalez, of Etna, assumed the identity of his brother in 1965, a quarter century after his sibling’s death as an infant, and used the stolen identity to obtain Social Security benefits under both identities, multiple passports and state identification cards, law enforcement officials said.A U.S. District Court jury on Friday convicted him of charges including mail fraud, Social Security fraud, passport fraud and identity theft. He faces up to 20 years in prison at sentencing, with mail fraud carrying the greatest potential penalty of all the charges.Gonzalez’s benefits were previously investigated by the Social Security Administration in 2010 for potential fraud and his b...

Elementary school in London, Ont., caps enrolment, cites ‘unprecedented growth’

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:16:52 GMT

A school board in southwestern Ontario is capping enrolment at one of its elementary schools, citing what it called “unprecedented growth” in London.The Thames Valley District School Board says students registered for White Oaks Public School after June 30 will be designated to Nicholas Wilson Public School, about two kilometres away.The school board says transportation will be provided, and the decision has so far affected 25 students.The board says there has been a rapid increase in the number of families in the attendance area of White Oaks, which has a capacity for around 1,000 students.The board says it will be seeking approval from the Education Ministry for a new southwest London elementary school in a bid to accommodate what it calls the growing number of families.The ministry greenlit funding in January 2022 to build a new $20.7-million southwest London elementary school, expected to be complete by the start of the 2025 school year, pending further approvals.The...

Florida agencies are accused in a lawsuit of sending confusing Medicaid termination notices

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:16:52 GMT

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. (AP) — Three Florida residents filed a federal lawsuit Tuesday, alleging that state agencies aren’t adequately notifying low-income and disabled people that their public health insurance is ending.The class-action lawsuit was filed in Jacksonville federal court by the Florida Health Justice Project and the National Health Law Program on behalf of the three Floridians, according to court records. The defendants are the Florida Agency for Health Care Administration and the Florida Department of Children and Families. The agencies didn’t immediately respond to emails seeking comment.More than 182,000 Floridians have been issued termination notices since April, when a coronavirus policy that banned states from dropping people from Medicaid ended, while hundreds of thousands more are expected to lose coverage over the next year, the residents claim in the lawsuit. Many of the low-income people who are losing coverage have no idea whether the state is making...

Cleanup of chemical runoff in Etobicoke creeks to last until October, ministry says

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:16:52 GMT

As cleanup continues nearly two weeks after a chemical runoff from an industrial fire in Etobicoke affected local creeks, the ministry says crews will likely remain on site maintaining the waterways until October.A spokesperson for Ontario’s Ministry of Environment, Conservation and Parks said they’ll be present at Mimico Creek and the Humber Bay Park area “and actively engaged with all relevant parties such as the Brenntag Canada Inc., its contractor GLF Environmental, as well as Toronto Water and Environment and Climate Change Canada.”“Containment efforts have been successful, and the material was contained within the Humber Bay Park area of Mimico Creek and did not reach open water,” a government spokesperson said. “As of August 21, the oil slurry had been collected, and efforts will focus on the cleanup of the creek banks.”A six-alarm fire at an Etobicoke industrial building on August 11 led to the chemical spillage in Mimico Creek...

Patients in B.C. long-term care homes and N.W.T. hospitals displaced by wildfires

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:16:52 GMT

Nearly 900 seniors have been forced out of care facilities in a wildfire-ravaged region of British Columbia while the province has joined Alberta in receiving medical evacuees from the Northwest Territories, where thousands of residents have escaped dangerous conditions.Susan Brown, CEO of Interior Health in B.C., said most of the residents were transferred from long-term care homes and memories of the devastation from past fires in the province may be exacerbating angst among both patients and employees.“There’s so much anxiety associated with wildfires now. We have a lot of staff and families that have been through this multiple years,” she said of previous blazes, including in 2003, when about 33,000 people fled the area and many homes were burned to the ground.A separate group of patients of various ages with previously acquired brain injury has also been moved. The majority of seniors were transferred to safer areas of their large Interior region but some are ...

Stock market today: Wall Street stalls a day after a rare August gain

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:16:52 GMT

NEW YORK (AP) — Wall Street is drifting in mixed trading Tuesday ahead of two potentially market-shaking events later in the week.The S&P 500 was 0.2% lower in late trading, coming off a rare August gain that was powered by Big Tech stocks Monday. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 159 points, or 0.5%, at 34,304 with an hour remaining in trading. The Nasdaq composite was 0.2% higher.Stocks have struggled this month as yields have shot upward in the bond market, which cranks up the pressure on other investments. The yield on the 10-year Treasury eased a bit Tuesday, a day after reaching its highest level since 2007.Nvidia, one of Wall Street’s most influential stocks, swung from an early gain to a loss of 2.5% ahead of its earnings report on Wednesday, one that could be pivotal for the stock market. The chipmaker has been at the center of Wall Street’s frenzy around artificial-intelligence technology, which investors believe will create immense profits for companies....