The border between Canada and the United States will remain closed to non-essential travel for at least another month.
Public Safety Minister Bill Blair announced late Friday that the closure has been extended to March 21 — precisely one year after the world’s longest undefended border was first shut down to curb the spread of COVID-19.
Since then, the closure has been extended month by month.
With more contagious variants of the coronavirus spreading across the continent, Friday’s extension is unlikely to be the last.
WATCH | Navigating Canada’s new restrictions on airline passengers:
From hotel quarantines to mandatory PCR testing, we hear from two panellists about how they are experiencing Ottawa’s latest and strictest travel measures. Rohan Jumani flew to India for his father’s funeral and now faces these new measures, and Richard Vanderlubbe is the president of the tripcentral.ca travel agency. 8:25
Blair tweeted that the government will continue to base its decisions on the border “on the best public health advice to keep Canadians safe.”
The border has remained open for essential travel throughout the pandemic in a bid to avoid disrupting the flow of food, medical supplies and other crucial goods between the two countries.
The Public Health Agency of Canada released modelling on Friday suggesting that while infections continue to decline nationally, the spread of virus mutations threatens to reverse that progress.
Canada’s chief public health officer said there are currently fewer than 33,000 active cases in Canada, a 60 per cent drop compared with a month ago.
But with more contagious variants now detected in all provinces, Dr. Theresa Tam said Canada may not be able to avoid a rapid acceleration of daily cases, predicted to hit 20,000 by mid-March, without continued vigilance.
What’s happening in Canada
As of 1:30 p.m. ET on Saturday, Canada had reported 842,635 cases of COVID-19, with 31,806 cases considered active. A CBC News tally of deaths stood at 21,618.
Quebec City’s public health department says it may have detected the first local case of a COVID-19 variant, at an elementary school in the city’s Cap-Rouge neighbourhood.
The Marguerite d’Youville school has been closed indefinitely, and the school population of 283 students and more than 50 staff members are to be tested in the next 48 hours. They must remain in isolation until further notice from public health authorities.
New Brunswick saw three more cases, all in the Edmundston region.
Newfoundland and Labrador reported 38 new cases, all within the Eastern Health region. Health officials in that region are recommending COVID-19 testing for anyone in the Mount Pearl Senior High School community, after an outbreak was declared there on Feb 7.
WATCH | Testing ramps up as N.L. struggles to contain outbreak:
Janice Fitzgerald, the chief medical officer of health for Newfoundland and Labrador, says labs are now processing more than six times the number of tests every 24 hours than they were two weeks ago. 1:08
Nunavut confirmed six new cases in Arviat. It’s the eighth day in a row that new cases have been reported in the hard-hit community. With one recovery, Arviat now has 30 active cases.
The Northwest Territoriesannounced dozens of new clinic dates in communities across the territory where residents can receive their second dose of the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine — or their first dose, if they missed the clinic’s first visit.
What’s happening around the world
As of Saturday, more than 110.8 million cases of COVID-19 had been reported worldwide, with more than 62.5 million of those cases listed as recovered on a tracking site run by Johns Hopkins University. The global death toll stood at more than 2.4 million.
In Asia, thousands of marshals have been hired to enforce mask wearing across India’s financial capital of Mumbai, which is battling a recent spike in cases.
A municipal worker gives a penalty to a commuter for not wearing a face mask inside a train in Mumbai on Saturday. (Rajanish Kakade/The Associated Press)
In Europe, Denmark has temporarily closed some border crossing points with Germany and stepped up checks at others due to a spike in COVID-19 cases and a rise in virus variants in the northern German town of Flensburg, near the Danish border.
In the Americas, Argentinian Health Minister Gines Gonzalez Garcia resigned following reports that people had been able to use connections to get access to COVID-19 vaccines to which they were not entitled.
In Africa, Ghana is expecting a first delivery of just over 350,000 AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccine shots by the end of next week.
PALM BEACH, Fla. (AP) — Donald Trump is refusing to say how he voted on Florida’s abortion measure — and getting testy about it.
The former president was asked twice after casting his ballot in Palm Beach, Florida, on Tuesday about a question that the state’s voters are considering. If approved, it would prevent state lawmakers from passing any law that penalizes, prohibits, delays or restricts abortion until fetal viability — which doctors say is sometime after 21 weeks.
If it’s rejected, the state’s restrictive six-week abortion law would stand.
The first time he was asked, Trump avoided answering. He said instead of the issue that he did “a great job bringing it back to the states.” That was a reference to the former president having appointed three conservative justices to the U.S. Supreme Court who helped overturn the landmark Roe v. Wade decision in 2022.
Pressed a second time, Trump snapped at a reporter, saying “you should stop talking about it.”
Trump had previously indicated that he would back the measure — but then changed his mind and said he would vote against it.
In August, Trump said he thought Florida’s ban was a mistake, saying on Fox News Channel, “I think six weeks, you need more time.” But then he said, “at the same time, the Democrats are radical” while repeating false claims he has frequently made about late-term abortions.
In addition to Florida, voters in eight other states are deciding whether their state constitutions should guarantee a right to abortion, weighing ballot measures that are expected to spur turnout for a range of crucial races.
Passing certain amendments in Arizona, Missouri, Nebraska and South Dakota likely would lead to undoing bans or restrictions that currently block varying levels of abortion access to more than 7 million women of childbearing age who live in those states.
NEW YORK (AP) — In a new video posted early Election Day, Beyoncé channels Pamela Anderson in the television program “Baywatch” – red one-piece swimsuit and all – and asks viewers to vote.
In the two-and-a-half-minute clip, set to most of “Bodyguard,” a four-minute cut from her 2024 country album “Cowboy Carter,” Beyoncé cosplays as Anderson’s character before concluding with a simple message, written in white text: “Happy Beylloween,” followed by “Vote.”
At a rally for Donald Trump in Pittsburgh on Monday night, the former president spoke dismissively about Beyoncé’s appearance at a Kamala Harris rally in Houston in October, drawing boos for the megastar from his supporters.
“Beyoncé would come in. Everyone’s expecting a couple of songs. There were no songs. There was no happiness,” Trump said.
She did not perform — unlike in 2016, when she performed at a presidential campaign rally for Hillary Clinton in Cleveland – but she endorsed Harris and gave a moving speech, initially joined onstage by her Destiny’s Child bandmate Kelly Rowland.
“I’m not here as a celebrity, I’m not here as a politician. I’m here as a mother,” Beyoncé said.
“A mother who cares deeply about the world my children and all of our children live in, a world where we have the freedom to control our bodies, a world where we’re not divided,” she said at the rally in Houston, her hometown.
“Imagine our daughters growing up seeing what’s possible with no ceilings, no limitations,” she continued. “We must vote, and we need you.”
Harris used the song in July during her first official public appearance as a presidential candidate at her campaign headquarters in Delaware. That same month, Beyoncé’s mother, Tina Knowles, publicly endorsed Harris for president.
Beyoncé gave permission to Harris to use the song, a campaign official who was granted anonymity to discuss private campaign operations confirmed to The Associated Press.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh and Green Party Leader Elizabeth May pay tribute to the life of Murray Sinclair, former judge, senator and chair of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Sinclair died November 4, 2024 at the age of 73. (Nov. 4, 2024)
