Ontario lacks a health-care plan for alcohol harms as sales expand: health coalition

LONDON (AP) — A British ban on protesting outside abortion clinics went into effect on Thursday, though it left a question mark over whether anti-abortion demonstrators who pray silently will be breaking the law.

The law, which applies to England and Wales, bars protests within 150 meters (164 yards) of clinics. Scotland and Northern Ireland, which make their own health policies, recently enacted similar bans.

The new rules make it an offense to obstruct someone using abortion services, “intentionally or recklessly” influence their decision, or cause “harassment, alarm or distress.” Offenders face a fine, with no upper limit.

The buffer zone rule was passed 18 months ago as part of the previous Conservative government’s Public Order Act, but wrangling over whether it would apply to silent prayer protests, and a change in government in July, have delayed it taking effect.

The Crown Prosecution Service says silent prayer near an abortion clinic “will not necessarily commit a criminal offense,” and police say they will assess each case individually.

Anti-abortion campaigners and religious groups argue that banning silent-prayer protests would be an affront to freedom of religion. But pro-choice campaigners say silent anti-abortion demonstrators are often intimidating to women entering clinics.

“It’s difficult to see how anyone choosing to perform their prayers right outside an abortion clinic could argue they aren’t attempting to influence people — and there are countless testimonies from women who say this makes them feel distressed,” said Louise McCudden, U.K. head of external affairs at MSI Reproductive Choices, one of Britain’s biggest abortion providers.

In March 2023, lawmakers rejected a change to the legislation proposed by some conservative legislators that would have explicitly allowed silent prayer within the buffer zones. The final rules are a potentially messy compromise that is likely to be tested in court.

Crime and Policing Minister Diana Johnson said she was “confident that the safeguards we have put in place today will have a genuine impact in helping women feel safer and empowered to access the vital services they need.”

But Bishop John Sherrington of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales, said the government had “taken an unnecessary and disproportionate step backwards” on religious freedom.

“Religious freedom includes the right to manifest one’s private beliefs in public through witness, prayer and charitable outreach, including outside abortion facilities,” he said.

Abortion is not as divisive an issue in the U.K. as in the U.S., where women’s access to terminations has been rolled back, and banned in some states, since the Supreme Court overturned the landmark Roe v. Wade ruling in 2022.

Abortion was partly legalized in Britain by the 1967 Abortion Act, which allows abortions up to 24 weeks of pregnancy if two doctors approve. Later abortions are allowed in some circumstances, including danger to the mother’s life.

But women who have abortions after 24 weeks in England and Wales can be prosecuted under the 1861 Offenses Against the Person Act. Last year a 45-year-old woman in England was sentenced to 28 months in prison for ordering abortion pills online to induce a miscarriage when she was 32 to 34 weeks pregnant. After an outcry, her sentence was reduced.

The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.

PALO ALTO, Calif. (AP) — Google Maps is heading down a new road steered by artificial intelligence.

The shift announced Thursday will bring more of the revolutionary AI technology that Google already has been baking into its dominant search engine to the digital maps service that the internet company launched nearly 20 years ago as part of its efforts to expand into new frontiers.

Google Maps recently surpassed 2 billion monthly users worldwide for the first time, a milestone that illustrates how dependent people have become on the service’s directions during their daily commutes and excursions to new places. With the introduction of Google’s AI-powered Gemini technology, the maps are now being set up to become entertainment guides in addition to navigational tools.

Starting this week in the U.S. only, users will be able to converse with Google Maps to ask for tips on things to do around specific spots in a neighborhood or city and receive lists of restaurants, bars and other nearby attractions that include reviews that have been compiled through the years. The new features will also provide more detailed information about parking options near a designated destination along with walking directions for a user to check after departing the car.

“We are entering a new era of maps,” Miriam Daniel, general manager of Google Maps, told reporters Wednesday during a preview of the features presented in Palo Alto, California. “We are transforming how you navigate and explore the world.”

Google Maps also is trying to address complaints by introducing more detailed imagery that will make it easier to see which lane of the road to be situated in well ahead of having to make a turn.

In another AI twist, Google Maps is going to allow outside developers to tap into the language models underlying its Gemini technology to enable pose questions about specific destinations, such as apartments or restaurants, and get their queries answered within seconds. Google says this new feature, which initially will go through a testing phase, has undergone a fact-checking procedure that it calls “grounding.”

Google’s Waze maps, which focus exclusively on real-time driving directions, will use AI to offer a conversational way for its roughly 180 million monthly users to announce hazards in the road and other problems that could affect traveling times.

The decision to bring AI into a service that so many rely upon to get from one point to the next reflects Google’s growing confidence in its ability to prevent its Gemini technology from providing false or misleading information, also known as “hallucinations,” to users. Google’s AI has already been caught hallucinating in some of the summaries that began rolling in May, including advice to put glue on pizza and an assertion that the fourth U.S. president, James Madison, graduated from the University of Wisconsin, located in a city named after him.

The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.

Bridget Carleton was in Minneapolis this summer when a WNBA fan stopped her on the street. The fan rolled up a sleeve to reveal a tattoo of Carleton’s name and her Minnesota Lynx jersey number on their arm.

For the Canadian, it was just another example of the league’s growing popularity in its most successful season ever.

“The passion these fans have, it’s been a lot of fun,” said Carleton of the fan’s ink. “I feel like, especially in women’s sports, fans can be connected to us on a different level because we put ourselves out there.

“We try to show our personalities, be more than just the athletes we are. I think that’s what’s special about it and they get to know us.”

The WNBA reached new highs in 2024 on and off the court.

It started with a hotly anticipated draft where NCAA scoring sensation Caitlin Clark was selected first overall by the Indiana Fever. The Chicago Sky took rebounding wiz Angel Reese seventh overall in that same draft, which American sports broadcaster ESPN said averaged 2.4 million viewers, up 328 per cent over 2023 to become the most-viewed WNBA Draft ever.

May’s announcement of a new franchise based in Toronto generated more buzz in Canada before the WNBA’s season had begun.

Although the as-yet-unnamed Toronto franchise won’t play until 2026, the WNBA reports that regular-season viewership in Canada was up 148 per cent year over year.

The second annual WNBA Canada Game a pre-season exhibition held on May 5 in Edmonton, featured a sellout crowd for the second consecutive year. Viewership of the second Canada Game was up 65 per cent in Canada over the 2023 edition in Toronto.

The excitement continued on the court as Las Vegas Aces centre A’ja Wilson set a new WNBA record with 26.9 points per game, Reese set the new rebounding mark with 13.1 per game, and Clark fed into a rivalry with Reese over rookie of the year honours with a league-best 8.4 assists per game.

Ultimately, Clark won the rookie of the year award after Reese’s season ended early with a hairline fracture in her wrist.

ESPN reported several new ratings highs, including the most-viewed regular season ever across its platforms, averaging 1.2 million viewers per game in the United States, up 170 per cent over 2023.

When Clark’s Fever played Reese’s Sky on June 23 it was the most-watched regular-season game in WNBA history, averaging 2.3 million viewers.

Carleton, playing her sixth WNBA season, felt that excitement.

“Arenas all across the country were sold out consistently the playoffs were just another level of energy and excitement in every single building,” she said on Wednesday from her home in Chatham-Kent, Ont. “You felt it on social media, even in the cities, walking around on the street where two, three years ago, I probably wouldn’t have gotten recognized.

“Now it’s hard to go out in public without at least one or two people noticing me or saying ‘hey, good game last night,’ things like that. It’s so fun to be a part of this wave.”

Carleton averaged a career-high 29.9 minutes per game for Minnesota, scoring 9.6 points, 3.8 rebounds, 2.2 assists and a steal per game. She finished third in voting for the league’s Most Improved Player Award, helping the Lynx (30-10) reach the playoffs for a 15th time.

“Getting a solid opportunity this year to be a consistent starter and play significant minutes was just a credit, I think, to all the hard work I put in and being the player I can be,” said Carleton. “I’m really proud of how far I’ve come as a professional and I think this year was a good showing of that.”

Carleton kept contributing in the post-season, making two clutch free throws with two seconds left in the fourth quarter as Minnesota forced a decisive Game 5 of the WNBA Finals on Oct. 18 by beating the New York Liberty 82-80.

That winner-take-all finale also drew record numbers of viewers with ESPN reporting that WNBA Finals Presented by YouTube TV was the most-watched Finals in the league’s 25 years, averaging 1.6 million viewers, up 115 per cent over 2023.

Each telecast in the five-game series averaged more than a million American viewers, with Games 3, 4, and 5 each becoming the most-viewed WNBA Finals games ever on U.S. cable.

“I think women’s basketball has been on the rise for a long time, and finally, we’re getting the recognition we deserve,” said Carleton. “People just gave us a chance finally, and they obviously love the product and are sticking to it.

“It’s been so much fun. Definitely, it’s fun to see the growth, to get to where we are now.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 31, 2024.