Three injured at Quebec mosque while trying to disarm man carrying knife: official

FREDERICTON – New Brunswick’s Progressive Conservative leader disrespected the province’s residents by presenting the death of a Liberal supporter as funny, the party said as it called for Blaine Higgs to apologize.

Higgs drew the party’s ire during remarks made at his Thursday campaign kickoff event in Quispamsis, N.B., held hours after he dissolved the legislature and officially triggered the campaign leading up to the Oct. 21 provincial election.

His speech to party faithful included a second-hand anecdote of a conversation that purportedly took place in 2014 between a party volunteer canvassing for votes and a newly minted supporter. At the time, Higgs was seeking re-election as the legislature member for the Quispamsis riding, which he has represented since 2010.

The conversation, the story went, began when the canvasser was leaving the home of a woman who had just voiced her intention to vote for Higgs.

“(The volunteer) said: ‘Thank you very much. That’s great.’ Then she started walking next door, and the lady said: ‘Oh, you don’t need to go there. She passed away a few weeks ago,'” Higgs said in his retelling of the story. “This campaigner — you know, very passionate individual — said: ‘I’m so sorry. Was she sick long? Or what happened? And the lady just said, ‘Oh, don’t feel too bad. She was a Liberal.'”

“I know that’s not an appropriate joke, but it was funny and it is true,” Higgs concluded.

Hannah Fulton Johnston, executive director of the New Brunswick Liberal Association, condemned Higgs’s anecdote in a statement issued on Friday in which she called the joke distasteful.

“The New Brunswick Liberal Association is calling on Blaine Higgs to apologize for this comment,” it reads.

“Making light of the death of any New Brunswicker is highly inappropriate for anyone and completely unacceptable for the premier of the province.”

Green Party Leader David Coon described the anecdote as disgusting and questioned whether the comment could be passed off as a joke.

“It’s a very dark comment,” he said on Friday.

Higgs, 70, has so far stuck to broadly populist messages as he seeks a third term as New Brunswick’s premier. His key issues so far have included bringing down the harmonized sales tax from 15 to 13 per cent and requiring teachers to get parental consent before they can use the preferred names and pronouns of young students in class.

When asked about the Liberals’ request for an apology, Progressive Conservative Party Executive Director Doug Williams shifted the focus back to past remarks from Liberal Leader Susan Holt and tried to draw a parallel between her and her unpopular federal counterpart.

“If Susan Holt is truly concerned about offensive comments, will she apologize for saying that concerns of parents about their children are ‘BS’? … Will she apologize for saying the Premier acts like a fascist?” the statement reads.

“The media have not paid any attention to these remarks, despite Progressive Conservatives raising them publicly. Just like Justin Trudeau, Susan Holt wants apologies for things that other people have done, and never wants to apologize for her own actions.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 21, 2024.

The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.

RICHMOND, B.C. – British Columbia’s election campaign is officially underway, New Democrat Leader David Eby said Saturday at a campaign stop in the Metro Vancouver city of Richmond where he was met by cheering supporters who lined the street.

Eby, who spoke in a crowded room where it appeared every person was wearing the NDP’s colour orange, said B.C. is facing many tough challenges, including affordable housing, public health care, mental health and addictions and the cost of living.

But he pledged to be “laser focused” on tackling the issues.

“We can’t divide each other,” he said. “The only way we solve these problems is by working together. Here’s my commitment to you, to everybody in this room, to all British Columbians: we won’t rest until the job is done.”

B.C. Conservative Leader John Rustad kicked off his party’s campaign in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside at the neighbourhood’s CRAB Park, known for its long period of homeless encampments.

Lt.-Gov. Janet Austin signed the writ Saturday for the Oct. 19 vote.

The date, however, didn’t deter political leaders from getting a head start on the campaign.

Eby began his campaign early Friday by getting on the party’s bus and heading straight to the Metro Vancouver city of Surrey, which is expected to be a major battleground for the New Democrats and B.C. Conservatives.

Eby and the NDP’s campaign bus are making several Lower Mainland stops on the first full day of campaigning, including North Vancouver, Langley, Burnaby and Richmond.

CRAB park, where Rustad launched his campaign, is an area of Vancouver where the city recently spent thousands of dollars cleaning up a homeless camp.

Rustad will be on Vancouver Island later Saturday.

Green Leader Sonia Furstenau is in Victoria for what the party said will be its largest canvassing effort to date to connect with voters.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 21, 2024.

The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.

TOKYO (AP) — If you’re trying to lose weight and want a new way to do it, stair-climbing as a regular exercise — or just adding a few flights a day — might be for you.

It’s accessible, and research shows it’s more effective than walking on level ground.

“Overall, it is a fact that stair-climbing gets you fit faster and consumes more calories,” said Lauri van Houten, vice president of the International Skyrunning Federation, which oversees a wide range of disciplines that involve vertical climbing.

This includes disciplines like mountain running above 2,000 meters (about 6,500 feet) or events like the Stairclimbing World Championships.

These competitions are for the very fit, but we’re talking here about adding a few minutes of stair-climbing as a daily routine and raising awareness about its effectiveness for all ages.

“How many calories will I burn is the question everyone wants to know,” van Houten said. “Here’s the good news: The overall energy expenditure of the exercise depends on your weight. Therefore, the more you weigh, the more you burn.”

Stair-climbing burns calories — fast

Research shows you burn about 20 times more calories going up stairs than walking on flat ground. Even going down stairs you burn roughly five times more, the muscles being worked to slow the body’s descent.

That might be all you need to know if you are trying to lose weight.

Dr. Alberto Minetti, a physiologist and biomechanist at the University of Milan, has done extensive research of human locomotion — including stair-climbing.

“It is an exercise everybody can do,” Minetti told The Associated Press. “You always have stairs nearby you — free of charge compared to a gym.”

Minetti did the math to explain why going up stairs is so effective for burning calories in a short amount of time.

“To move 1 kilogram of body mass over 1 horizontal meter, you expend 0.5 calories,” he said. “If you move 1 kilogram of body mass vertically on stairs it’s 10 calories. So it’s 20 times the calories moving vertically rather than horizontally.”

Trained as a physician, Minetti has spent his career in research rather than treating patients. He suggested “watching your speed” for the not-so-young and beginners. He does his own stair-climbing at his third-floor residence in Milan. He said he often takes a few deep breaths before ascending, which makes him feel fresher at the top.

In a scientific study, Minetti makes the point that using the arms in stair-climbing adds extra power. Handrails offer safety, too.

The journal notes that handrails are available in most stairwells in skyscrapers, which maximizes “the muscle mass involved and, consequently, the mechanical/metabolic power of the ascent” by getting the arms involved.

“They are relatively small muscles in the arms, but better than nothing,” Minetti said.

Stairs are everywhere

If stair-climbing was an Olympic sport, Suzy Walsham would own a handful of gold medals.

She’s won 10 races up New York’s Empire State Building — officially 1,576 stairs. She’s claimed titles in more than 100 international stair races, and was once regarded as the No. 1 woman in the discipline.

Five times, the Australian has won climbs up the Eiffel Tower.

This was all too easy, apparently.

When she was living in Singapore, Walsham climbed up her 29-story building — 37 consecutive times. It took over four hours, riding the elevator down each time after reaching the top with short breaks for coffee or water. She covered a vertical distance of 3,200 meters (10,500 feet).

But let’s get grounded. What are the advantages of stair-climbing as a regular exercise routine for the rest of us?

“You get a lot of bang for your buck,” Walsham told the AP. “Many people struggle to run as they age. The impact of running gets harder on the joints. But stair training is a great alternative.”

Stairs are everywhere — one flight, two flights at home, inside skyscrapers, in stadiums and arenas, at work, in shopping malls, in the subway.

One giant advantage of stair-climbing is it doesn’t take much time. It’s easy to build up, adding a few flights of stairs every day or week, and it improves balance.

On the down side, it’s not very scenic, particularly in the stairways of towering skyscrapers.

Stair-climbing can be worked into your daily routine

Yuri Yoshizumi won last year’s women’s division of the Stairclimbing World Championships in her native Osaka, Japan, a 285-meter (935 feet) climb — 1,610 stairs — that she finished in 10 minutes, 20.06 seconds.

“Stair-climbing is an easy sport for beginners and the general public to get into,” Yoshizumi told the AP in an email. “Elite athletes push themselves pretty hard, so it’s pretty tough. But it’s good for you to strengthen your muscles and your cardiovascular system in a short amount of time.”

She added another advantage, particularly living in a large metropolis like Osaka.

“It’s possible to do it in the city,” she said. “Just using the stairs instead of the escalators at (subway) stations and department stores is a good way to get some exercise.”