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Top US accident investigator says close calls between planes show that aviation is under stress

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 12:18:32 GMT

The nation’s top accident investigator said Thursday that a surge in close calls between planes at U.S. airports this year is a “clear warning sign” that the aviation system is under stress.“While these events are incredibly rare, our safety system is showing clear signs of strain that we cannot ignore,” Jennifer Homendy, chair of the National Transportation Safety Board, told a Senate panel on Thursday.Homendy warned that air traffic and staffing shortages have surged since the pandemic. She said there has been a “lack of meaningful” training — and more reliance on computer-based instruction — by the Federal Aviation Administration and airlines. She said technology improvements could help avoid what aviation insiders call “runway incursions.”Representatives of unions for pilots and air traffic controllers and a former chief of the Federal Aviation Administration were scheduled to testify at the same hearing.The FAA said earlier this week that it will hold meetings at 16...

Artists’ posters of hostages held by Hamas, started as public reminder, become flashpoint themselves

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 12:18:32 GMT

NEW YORK (AP) — Making the posters, they said, came out of a desire to feel connected, to do something.Artists Nitzan Mintz and Dede Bandaid would normally have been at home in Tel Aviv with family and friends, but were instead in New York City to take part in an art program when Hamas fighters massacred more than 1,400 people in Israel on Oct 7.They channeled their anguish into creating posters bearing the names and faces of the more than 200 people taken hostage during the attack, each page blaring “KIDNAPPED” across the top. The goal was to invoke public pressure in hopes of bringing the abducted home. Fliers and posters based on their template have since appeared in cities around the world.While they were intended to inspire outrage at Hamas and sympathy for the abducted, the posters have also become a flashpoint, angering people critical of Israel’s actions in the conflict with Palestinians, who see the posters as propaganda.Pro-Palestinian activists in many cities have torn th...

Nation’s first openly gay governor looking to re-enter politics after nearly 20 years

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 12:18:32 GMT

JERSEY CITY, N.J. (AP) — The nation’s first openly gay governor is looking to re-enter politics nearly 20 years after he left.Former New Jersey Gov. Jim McGreevey announced Thursday that he will seek the mayor’s office in Jersey City in 2025. He made the announcement in a video posted online and planned to formally launch his campaign with a news conference later in the day.McGreevey, a Democrat, is a former Woodbridge Township mayor who was elected governor in 2002. He announced in August 2004 that he was “a gay American” and acknowledged having an extramarital affair with a male staffer. He resigned that year.“I was imperfect and I’ll always be imperfect,” McGreevey, 66, said at the start of the video, which shows him watching a portion of his resignation announcement. “It’s important to take responsibility and do the next right thing.”After leaving office, McGreevey founded the New Jersey Reentry Corporation, which provides job training, counseling and many other serv...

Air Canada CEO apologizes for accessibility barriers, rolls out new measures

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 12:18:32 GMT

MONTREAL — Air Canada CEO Michael Rousseau is apologizing for the airline’s accessibility shortfalls and rolling out new measures to improve the travel experience for hundreds of thousands of passengers living with a disability.Rousseau says the carrier is speeding up a three-year accessibility plan after recent reports of passenger mistreatment, including an incident where a man with spastic cerebral palsy was forced to drag himself off of an airplane due to a lack of assistance.The measures range from establishing a customer accessibility director to consistently boarding passengers who request lift assistance first.Air Canada also aims to implement annual, recurrent training in accessibility — such as how to use a lift — for its 10,000-odd airport employees and include mobility aids in an app that can track baggage.David Lepofsky, visiting research professor of disability rights at Western University’s law faculty, says that as a blind person he dreads flying in Canad...

Labour minister tables replacement-worker legislation promised in Liberal-NDP deal

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 12:18:32 GMT

OTTAWA — Replacement workers would be banned during strikes and lockouts at federally regulated workplaces under new legislation introduced in the House of Commons today.Labour Minister Seamus O’Regan says the bill will bar employers from hiring someone to do the work of anyone who is on strike or lockout, and will apply to multiple work sites including federal Crown corporations, airports, ports and the federal public service.There are exceptions if not replacing workers would constitute a threat to health and safety, or could cause serious property or environmental damage.The bill fulfils a promise the Liberals made in the 2021 election to ban the use of replacement workers if an employer locks its employees out. But it goes a step further to extend the ban to strikes, too, a major component of the Liberals’ supply-and-confidence deal with the NDP. NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh says that without his party and decades of pressure from unions, this bill would not have happene...

Heather McDonald finds creative and financial freedom with popular ‘Juicy Scoop’ podcast

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 12:18:32 GMT

When “Chelsea Lately” aired its final episode on E! in 2014, Heather McDonald, a staff writer and regular panelist on the show, needed a new gig. As a stand-up comedian, her performance schedule wasn’t as consistent as a full-time job — then she heard about a fellow comic who launched a podcast to get his name out there and sell more tickets.“I was like, ‘If a podcast can help do that, I’m going to do that,’” McDonald says. She launched “ Juicy Scoop with Heather McDonald ” in 2015. Now, nearly 800 episodes later with more than 200 million downloads, it regularly ranks among the top comedy podcasts on Apple’s charts.Twice a week, McDonald releases a free episode sharing the latest celebrity gossip and pop culture headlines, TV recaps, and anecdotes. She bounces topics off guests and interviews people with juicy stories. McDonald strives to avoid anything truly divisive — like politics. But despite her best efforts, she found herself in the middle of a debate about the co...

Japanese Americans were jailed in a desert. Survivors worry a wind farm will overshadow the past.

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 12:18:32 GMT

JEROME, Idaho (AP) — Behind the barbed wire, the little boy pressed his ink-covered index finger onto the mint-green exit card. And a photograph was snapped of his frightened face.Paul Tomita was four. It was July 4, 1943. Independence Day at Minidoka, a camp in the vast Idaho desert, where over 13,000 Japanese American men, women and children were incarcerated during World War II as security risks because of their ancestry. The wallet-sized paper meant the scared boy in the photo could leave after 11 months living in a cramped barracks with his father, mother, two sisters and grandmother.Eight decades later, he returned with West Coast pilgrims who think the life-changing atrocity should be remembered. But now another government decision looms as a new threat — a wind project the pilgrims worry will destroy the experience they want to preserve.If approved by the Bureau of Land Management, the Lava Ridge Wind Farm would put up 400 turbines on 118 square miles (306 square kilometers)...

Wisconsin Assembly to vote on early ballot processing bill

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 12:18:32 GMT

MADISON, Wis. (AP) — Wisconsin elections officials would be able to process absentee ballots the day before an election under a bill scheduled for a vote Thursday in the Republican-controlled state Assembly.The Republican-backed measure is intended to ease the workload of local clerks and their staff, who run elections and try to ensure that ballot-counting doesn’t stretch late into election night.Under the bill, elections workers would not be allowed to count ballots until after polls close on election day, but they could work ahead to check ballot envelopes for necessary information, verify voter eligibility and take ballots out of envelopes to prepare them for tallying.Currently, Wisconsin elections workers cannot process absentee ballots until polls open at 7 a.m. on election day. This has led to long processing times for larger cities such as Madison and Milwaukee, sometimes causing swings in initial tallies when large batches of election results are reported late at nigh...

High court to hear appeal of B.C. law slapping health care costs on opioid companies

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 12:18:32 GMT

OTTAWA — The Supreme Court of Canada has agreed to hear an appeal from four pharmaceutical manufacturers, distributors or retailers trying to halt a proposed class-action lawsuit by the British Columbia government.Sanis Health, Sandoz Canada and McKeeson Canada, plus pharmacy retailer Shoppers Drug Mart, want the high court to examine two B.C. court decisions that confirmed the province’s right to pass legislation recovering opioid-related health care costs from companies making or handling opioid drugs.B.C. enacted the Opioid Damages and Health Care Costs Recovery Act in 2018, and Section 11 allows the province to file a class-action lawsuit against opioid providers itself or on behalf of the federal government or any province or territory that paid to treat patients who took the drugs.Since then, Sanis, Sandoz, McKeeson and Shoppers Drug Mart have lost cases in the B.C. Supreme Court and B.C. Court of Appeal as they argued Section 11 overstepped provincial authority and viol...

High rates, regulations have some rethinking short-term rental ownership: experts

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 12:18:32 GMT

Higher interest rates combined with stricter regulations have some Canadians beginning to second-guess the wisdom of investing in a short-term rental property.Deana Steele says she has never seen as many condo and vacation homes for sale as there are in Kelowna, B.C. right now.The founder of Keys to Kelowna Properties Inc., a luxury vacation rental management agency, said the lake-front city’sreal estate market is currently “saturated” by properties zoned for short-term rental use. Some of the sellers are people who bought not that long ago and arealready trying to get out.“We had all these first-timers flood the market — they were late adopters,” said Steele.“They thought they were going to make a mint because they saw what was happening in the gold rush. And now they’re realizing, ‘Oh, big mistake.'”The “gold rush” Steele is referring to is the investor stampede to short-term rentals that Kelowna and many other Cana...