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Travel restrictions coming to Canada and Poland abortion ban: In The News for Jan. 29 – Kamloops This Week

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In The News is a roundup of stories from The Canadian Press designed to kickstart your day. Here is what’s on the radar of our editors for the morning of Jan. 29 …

What we are watching in Canada …

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Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is expected to announce today new measures aimed at further restricting international travel as more infectious variants of the coronavirus that causes COVID-19 spread around the globe.

Trudeau has been urging Canadians for weeks not to take any non-essential trips outside the country.

And he’s been warning that the federal government could impose at any time restrictions that it would make it harder for them to return.

He’s expected to follow up those warnings today with concrete action, in time to put a stop to an exodus of winter-weary Canadians taking advantage of the coming March break to vacation in warmer climes.

Quebec Premier Francois Legault has been urging Ottawa to require anyone returning from abroad to quarantine for two weeks in a hotel, at their own expense.

Trudeau, who has conspicuously left the door open to that option, is expected to adopt it today.

He is also expected to announce other measures to further discourage travel abroad.

Also this …

A series of commemorations marking the fourth anniversary of the Quebec City mosque shooting are taking place today and tomorrow.

Six Muslim men were killed and five others wounded shortly after finishing evening prayers at the Quebec City Islamic cultural centre on Jan. 29, 2017.

Virtual events organized by the mosque and affiliated groups will begin shortly before 11 a.m. today with a reading from the Qur’an, which will be streamed on platforms such as Facebook and Zoom.

A vigil is also scheduled to take place in the Montreal neighbourhood of Parc-Extension, which has a large Muslim population.

In a letter to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, which was publicized Thursday, one of the co-founders of the Islamic cultural centre, Boufeldja Benabdallah, said the federal government hasn’t done enough to get handguns off the market.

Also on Thursday, the federal government announced that it plans to make Jan. 29 the “National Day of Remembrance of the Quebec City Mosque Attack and Action Against Islamophobia.”

What we are watching in the U.S. …

A new coronavirus variant identified in South Africa has been found in the United States for the first time, with two cases diagnosed in South Carolina, state health officials said Thursday.

The arrival of this variant now surging in other countries “is an important reminder to all South Carolinians that the fight against this deadly virus is far from over,” Dr. Brannon Traxler, DHEC Interim Public Health Director, said in a statement. “While more COVID-19 vaccines are on the way, supplies are still limited. Every one of us must recommit to the fight by recognizing that we are all on the front lines now. We are all in this together.”

Viruses are constantly mutating, with coronavirus variants circulating around the globe, but scientists are primarily concerned with the emergence of three of them. Other variants first reported in the United Kingdom and Brazil were previously confirmed in the U.S. Researchers believe these three variants may spread more easily, and predicted it was only a matter of time before they appeared here.

Also, scientists last week reported preliminary but troubling signs that some of the recent mutations may modestly curb the effectiveness of two current vaccines, although they stressed that the shots still protect against the disease. And there are signs that some of the new mutations may undermine tests for the virus and reduce the effectiveness of certain treatments.

The coronavirus has already sickened millions and killed more than 400,000 people in the United States.

While some European countries do extensive genetic testing to detect these variants, the U.S. has done very little of this detective work. But scientists have been been quickly trying to do more, and they’re spotting these apparently more contagious variants as they do.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has reported at least 315 cases of the U.K.-discovered variant in the United States. Those reports have come from at least 28 states, and health officials believe it could become the dominant strain in the U.S. by March. That variant has been reported in at least 70 countries.

What we are watching in the rest of the world …

A near-total ban on abortion has taken effect in Poland and triggered a new round of nationwide protests three months after the constitutional court ruled that the abortion of congenitally damaged fetuses is unconstitutional.

Led by a women’s rights group, Women’s Strike, people poured onto the streets of Warsaw, where they demonstrated in front of the court, and in other cities and towns on Thursday for the second evening in a row.

In Warsaw the atmosphere was tense and police detained three people who they said “had invaded the territory of the constitutional Tribunal.” Women’s Strike insisted that a total five people had been detained and said one of them was Klementyna Suchanow, one of the leaders of the movement.

Protesters insisted that women should have the right to decide about their own bodies. One banner in Rzeszow stated that an “abortion ban is discrimination against the poorest,” because poorer women will not be able to travel abroad for abortions, as Polish women who can afford to already do.

“I wanted to have more children, you killed this desire,” read a banner held by one woman among the demonstrators in Warsaw. Some Polish women said that if they are denied the right to terminate pregnancies in cases of badly deformed fetuses, they would not try to have children at all.

Poland’s top human rights official denounced the further restriction of what was already one of the most restrictive abortion laws in Europe, calling it a tragedy for women.

“The state wants to further limit their rights, risk their lives, and condemn them to torture,” said Adam Bodnar, the human rights commissioner, or ombudsman, whose role is independent from the Polish government. “This offensive is opposed by civil society.”

On this day in 1996 …

Canadian country singer Shania Twain was named Best New Country Artist at the American Music Awards.

In business news …

Canadian banks and trading platforms continue to face questions from customers amid a flurry of stock market activity both locally and worldwide.

Toronto-listed BlackBerry shares dropped 40.3 per cent today on more than twice their average daily volume, as several stocks that became popular topics on social media this week gave back gains.

A tweet from Wealthsimple says the Canadian app is seeing delays in email notifications amid extremely high volumes.

The Toronto-based robo-advisor says it is not restricting trading on any securities, but that users might see their orders marked as pending or canceled because user protections kick in if a stock price changes more than five per cent between the time an order was placed and when it is set to be filled.

TD says it increased margin requirements for short selling and uncovered options of GameStop, Express Inc. and AMC Entertainment Holdings Inc. on the New York Stock Exchange.

The updates from Canadian institutions come after Robinhood, Charles Schwab, TD Ameritrade and other platforms restricted trading on certain securities in the U.S., causing outcry among users and drawing comments from politicians.

ICYMI …

Concordia University says it has modified information provided to students in an art history course after one student said he was surprised to discover the professor delivering the video lectures had died in 2019.

Aaron Ansuini, a student at the Montreal university, wrote in a series of recent posts on Twitter that he enjoyed the lectures by Francois-Marc Gagnon, who he assumed was the professor of his online art history class.

Ansuini wrote that he searched for Gagnon’s email address in order to ask the professor a question but instead found an obituary.

While Ansuini described the course as “great” and praised Gagnon’s lectures, he wrote that he was sad that he couldn’t thank the professor for making the material “engaging and accessible” or ask him questions.

University spokeswoman Vannina Maestracci says that the course listing as well as communications with students made it clear that the course — which had been taught by Gagnon — now had a different instructor.

That instructor and two teaching assistants “are the ones interacting with students and grading assessments,” she wrote.

“We, of course, regret that this student felt they had not been clearly informed and have updated Dr. Gagnon’s biography in the course information provided to registered students,” she wrote in an email.

Maestracci says the video lectures are used as a “teaching tool,” comparing them to the textbooks used in other classes.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Jan. 29, 2021

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STD epidemic slows as new syphilis and gonorrhea cases fall in US

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NEW YORK (AP) — The U.S. syphilis epidemic slowed dramatically last year, gonorrhea cases fell and chlamydia cases remained below prepandemic levels, according to federal data released Tuesday.

The numbers represented some good news about sexually transmitted diseases, which experienced some alarming increases in past years due to declining condom use, inadequate sex education, and reduced testing and treatment when the COVID-19 pandemic hit.

Last year, cases of the most infectious stages of syphilis fell 10% from the year before — the first substantial decline in more than two decades. Gonorrhea cases dropped 7%, marking a second straight year of decline and bringing the number below what it was in 2019.

“I’m encouraged, and it’s been a long time since I felt that way” about the nation’s epidemic of sexually transmitted infections, said the CDC’s Dr. Jonathan Mermin. “Something is working.”

More than 2.4 million cases of syphilis, gonorrhea and chlamydia were diagnosed and reported last year — 1.6 million cases of chlamydia, 600,000 of gonorrhea, and more than 209,000 of syphilis.

Syphilis is a particular concern. For centuries, it was a common but feared infection that could deform the body and end in death. New cases plummeted in the U.S. starting in the 1940s when infection-fighting antibiotics became widely available, and they trended down for a half century after that. By 2002, however, cases began rising again, with men who have sex with other men being disproportionately affected.

The new report found cases of syphilis in their early, most infectious stages dropped 13% among gay and bisexual men. It was the first such drop since the agency began reporting data for that group in the mid-2000s.

However, there was a 12% increase in the rate of cases of unknown- or later-stage syphilis — a reflection of people infected years ago.

Cases of syphilis in newborns, passed on from infected mothers, also rose. There were nearly 4,000 cases, including 279 stillbirths and infant deaths.

“This means pregnant women are not being tested often enough,” said Dr. Jeffrey Klausner, a professor of medicine at the University of Southern California.

What caused some of the STD trends to improve? Several experts say one contributor is the growing use of an antibiotic as a “morning-after pill.” Studies have shown that taking doxycycline within 72 hours of unprotected sex cuts the risk of developing syphilis, gonorrhea and chlamydia.

In June, the CDC started recommending doxycycline as a morning-after pill, specifically for gay and bisexual men and transgender women who recently had an STD diagnosis. But health departments and organizations in some cities had been giving the pills to people for a couple years.

Some experts believe that the 2022 mpox outbreak — which mainly hit gay and bisexual men — may have had a lingering effect on sexual behavior in 2023, or at least on people’s willingness to get tested when strange sores appeared.

Another factor may have been an increase in the number of health workers testing people for infections, doing contact tracing and connecting people to treatment. Congress gave $1.2 billion to expand the workforce over five years, including $600 million to states, cities and territories that get STD prevention funding from CDC.

Last year had the “most activity with that funding throughout the U.S.,” said David Harvey, executive director of the National Coalition of STD Directors.

However, Congress ended the funds early as a part of last year’s debt ceiling deal, cutting off $400 million. Some people already have lost their jobs, said a spokeswoman for Harvey’s organization.

Still, Harvey said he had reasons for optimism, including the growing use of doxycycline and a push for at-home STD test kits.

Also, there are reasons to think the next presidential administration could get behind STD prevention. In 2019, then-President Donald Trump announced a campaign to “eliminate” the U.S. HIV epidemic by 2030. (Federal health officials later clarified that the actual goal was a huge reduction in new infections — fewer than 3,000 a year.)

There were nearly 32,000 new HIV infections in 2022, the CDC estimates. But a boost in public health funding for HIV could also also help bring down other sexually transmitted infections, experts said.

“When the government puts in resources, puts in money, we see declines in STDs,” Klausner said.

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The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

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World’s largest active volcano Mauna Loa showed telltale warning signs before erupting in 2022

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WASHINGTON (AP) — Scientists can’t know precisely when a volcano is about to erupt, but they can sometimes pick up telltale signs.

That happened two years ago with the world’s largest active volcano. About two months before Mauna Loa spewed rivers of glowing orange molten lava, geologists detected small earthquakes nearby and other signs, and they warned residents on Hawaii‘s Big Island.

Now a study of the volcano’s lava confirms their timeline for when the molten rock below was on the move.

“Volcanoes are tricky because we don’t get to watch directly what’s happening inside – we have to look for other signs,” said Erik Klemetti Gonzalez, a volcano expert at Denison University, who was not involved in the study.

Upswelling ground and increased earthquake activity near the volcano resulted from magma rising from lower levels of Earth’s crust to fill chambers beneath the volcano, said Kendra Lynn, a research geologist at the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory and co-author of a new study in Nature Communications.

When pressure was high enough, the magma broke through brittle surface rock and became lava – and the eruption began in late November 2022. Later, researchers collected samples of volcanic rock for analysis.

The chemical makeup of certain crystals within the lava indicated that around 70 days before the eruption, large quantities of molten rock had moved from around 1.9 miles (3 kilometers) to 3 miles (5 kilometers) under the summit to a mile (2 kilometers) or less beneath, the study found. This matched the timeline the geologists had observed with other signs.

The last time Mauna Loa erupted was in 1984. Most of the U.S. volcanoes that scientists consider to be active are found in Hawaii, Alaska and the West Coast.

Worldwide, around 585 volcanoes are considered active.

Scientists can’t predict eruptions, but they can make a “forecast,” said Ben Andrews, who heads the global volcano program at the Smithsonian Institution and who was not involved in the study.

Andrews compared volcano forecasts to weather forecasts – informed “probabilities” that an event will occur. And better data about the past behavior of specific volcanos can help researchers finetune forecasts of future activity, experts say.

(asterisk)We can look for similar patterns in the future and expect that there’s a higher probability of conditions for an eruption happening,” said Klemetti Gonzalez.

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The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

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Waymo’s robotaxis now open to anyone who wants a driverless ride in Los Angeles

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Waymo on Tuesday opened its robotaxi service to anyone who wants a ride around Los Angeles, marking another milestone in the evolution of self-driving car technology since the company began as a secret project at Google 15 years ago.

The expansion comes eight months after Waymo began offering rides in Los Angeles to a limited group of passengers chosen from a waiting list that had ballooned to more than 300,000 people. Now, anyone with the Waymo One smartphone app will be able to request a ride around an 80-square-mile (129-square-kilometer) territory spanning the second largest U.S. city.

After Waymo received approval from California regulators to charge for rides 15 months ago, the company initially chose to launch its operations in San Francisco before offering a limited service in Los Angeles.

Before deciding to compete against conventional ride-hailing pioneers Uber and Lyft in California, Waymo unleashed its robotaxis in Phoenix in 2020 and has been steadily extending the reach of its service in that Arizona city ever since.

Driverless rides are proving to be more than just a novelty. Waymo says it now transports more than 50,000 weekly passengers in its robotaxis, a volume of business numbers that helped the company recently raise $5.6 billion from its corporate parent Alphabet and a list of other investors that included venture capital firm Andreesen Horowitz and financial management firm T. Rowe Price.

“Our service has matured quickly and our riders are embracing the many benefits of fully autonomous driving,” Waymo co-CEO Tekedra Mawakana said in a blog post.

Despite its inroads, Waymo is still believed to be losing money. Although Alphabet doesn’t disclose Waymo’s financial results, the robotaxi is a major part of an “Other Bets” division that had suffered an operating loss of $3.3 billion through the first nine months of this year, down from a setback of $4.2 billion at the same time last year.

But Waymo has come a long way since Google began working on self-driving cars in 2009 as part of project “Chauffeur.” Since its 2016 spinoff from Google, Waymo has established itself as the clear leader in a robotaxi industry that’s getting more congested.

Electric auto pioneer Tesla is aiming to launch a rival “Cybercab” service by 2026, although its CEO Elon Musk said he hopes the company can get the required regulatory clearances to operate in Texas and California by next year.

Tesla’s projected timeline for competing against Waymo has been met with skepticism because Musk has made unfulfilled promises about the company’s self-driving car technology for nearly a decade.

Meanwhile, Waymo’s robotaxis have driven more than 20 million fully autonomous miles and provided more than 2 million rides to passengers without encountering a serious accident that resulted in its operations being sidelined.

That safety record is a stark contrast to one of its early rivals, Cruise, a robotaxi service owned by General Motors. Cruise’s California license was suspended last year after one of its driverless cars in San Francisco dragged a jaywalking pedestrian who had been struck by a different car driven by a human.

Cruise is now trying to rebound by joining forces with Uber to make some of its services available next year in U.S. cities that still haven’t been announced. But Waymo also has forged a similar alliance with Uber to dispatch its robotaxi in Atlanta and Austin, Texas next year.

Another robotaxi service, Amazon’s Zoox, is hoping to begin offering driverless rides to the general public in Las Vegas at some point next year before also launching in San Francisco.

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