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Two helicopters, a CL-415 water bomber from Newfoundland and Labradorand 40 crew members continue to fight an out-of-control fire in Nova Scotia's Yarmouth County that has grown significantly since it began earlier this week.

The fire near South Horseshoe Lake in eastern Yarmouth County measured roughly 3,100hectares in size on Wednesday afternoon,according to a provincial official.

That's compared to about 1,000 hectares on Tuesday night, and anestimate of 25 hectares early Tuesday morning.

"The biggest challenge that crews and pilots are facing is the amount of smoke," KaraMcCurdy, wildfire prevention officer for the Department of Natural Resources, said in an interview Wednesday with CBC Nova Scotia's News at Six.

"[Yesterday] we couldn't see enough to measure the edges of it. Today we've had less smoke and we got a better handle of the size of it."

McCurdy said the fire, which began Monday afternoon,is still consideredout of control.

The fire is "actively still moving but with the humidity last night, overnight and this morning, it's around 80 per cent, and the light winds, that's going to help decrease the fire spread," McCurdytold CBC Nova Scotia'sInformation Morning.

Satellite images shared on social media showedsmoke from the wildfire drifting west across Yarmouth County and into the Gulf of Maine.

"The smoke certainly was an issue across the province and the smoke plume was moving into a lot of the communities down in Yarmouth County," said McCurdy.

She said in the last two days, there were roughly15 fires across the province which were the result of low humidity and high winds. However, they were extinguished quickly.

Currently, there are burn restrictions in the counties of Queens, Shelburneand Yarmouth.

Smoke from the fire has prompted air quality alerts for the Yarmouth area, according to a release issued Wednesday evening from Natural Resources and Renewables, and an incident command post is being established.

The department said Tuesday the fire is in a fairly remote area and at that point there was no risk to homes or businesses.

Natural Resources and Renewables Minister Tory Rushton said Wednesday that conditions are still adverse, so the fire may continue to spread.

"However, at this time, we do not see it reaching communities," he said."The province's response is being managed by highly trained professionals and fire crew members who are ready to respond at a moment's notice to keep us safe in case of emergency," said Rushton.

McCurdy said the province is still investigating the fire but it is confident it was caused by humans since there has been no lightning in the remote area in the past week.

"The only access to the area is by all-terrain vehicles. So it would have to be somebody either going out fishing or on an all-terrain vehicle and in the area," she said.

"It could have been somebody stopped for lunch and had a campfire,smoking along the riverbank, or it could have even been accumulation of debris on an exhaust on an all-terrain vehicle."

She said crews were pulled from the line for safety reasons as the CL-415 water bomber helped with firefighting efforts Tuesday.

McCurdy said firefighting gets called off at night because of theincreasedrisks for firefighters and limits on thesupport available.

"In these circumstances, the crews will often start work at first light and then work till dusk, and then DNR and the fire departments will monitor the active fire overnight and work to protect structures," said McCurdy.

She said the area is mostly peat bog and black spruce, which makes it difficult to walk through.

"It's almost like walking in deep snow, you know it was like walking on pillows. So it can be hard to walk through and get equipment to it and with this limited access, they're having to carry equipment or get it moved in by aircraft," said McCurdy.

DNR has mobilized its incident management team, which will be looking after resources and logistics, from strategy and tactics to food and water for crews.

"They're also looking at getting more resources inbe it equipment, hoses, and ground personnel," she said.

CBC meteorologist Ryan Snoddonsaid Wednesday's easterly winds are lighter than Tuesday's, and are set to continue to ease through the evening.

"Amarine air mass moved in overnight and will remain in place into this evening. The higher relative humidity should help at least somewhat to slow the spread of the fire today," he said.

While there is still a chance of drizzle into Wednesday evening, Snoddon said it's not significant enough to have any real impact on the fire. As the sunshine returns on Thursday, the relative humidity will drop into the 35-45 per cent range in the afternoon.

"As the sun rises, northwest winds in the 10-20 km/h range are on the way for Thursday," Snoddon said. "Those winds will pushsmoke from the fire towards Shelburne and Queens counties."

McCurdy said a timeline for getting the fire under control will depend on weather conditions, and crews are hopeful for rain in the forecast.

"Sunday is looking like our break. We're hoping by Sunday, it may give us that chance to get it under control. But as for getting the fire completely out, it's going to take quite a few weeks."

See the original post here:
Out-of-control wildfire in Yarmouth County now covers 3,100 hectares - CBC.ca

By Jason Pan / Staff reporter

The Taiwan Statebuilding Party together with pro-Taiwan independence groups slammed recent government moves at a media briefing yesterday, while also opposing the presidents nomination of People First Party (PFP) Secretary-General Lee Hung-chun () as vice president of the Control Yuan.

At the event in Taipei, Taiwan Statebuilding Party Secretary-General Wang Sing-huan () said he was disappointed that the government was moving backwards with regard to political reform and pandering to conservative forces by not allowing a Taiwanese historian to serve as a board member of the publicly funded Taiwan Broadcasting System (TBS).

Wang and the groups said they were marking May 9 as A Day of Setback for Taiwan Transitional Justice, referring to Monday, when the decisions were announced.

Photo: Liao Chen-huei, Taipei Times

Looking at the core values and history of the KMT [Chinese Nationalist Party] and the PFP, the transitional justice process is working to clean up the stains and past wrongdoings, done by these two parties, Wang said, explaining why they are offended that President Tsai Ing-wen () nominated Lee, who was previously also a KMT member.

World United Formosans for Independence (WUFI) chairman Chen Nan-tien () said that the Control Yuan deputy president must rise above partisan politics and have a long-term vision.

He questioned Lees political stance and his roles during Taiwans democratization and transitional justice process.

Lee served four terms as legislator from 2002 to 2020, representing the PFP during his first two terms and the KMT during the latter two.

President Tsai could find numerous people from the Democratic Progressive Party or prominent figures in Taiwan to nominate instead, Chen said.

This nomination has betrayed the wishes of the vast majority of the public, and seems like a personal appointment that is not based on a balance of political power, Chen added.

Taiwan Statebuilding Party and WUFI officials condemned the decision by the TBS board member selection committee to reject the appointment of Chen Tsui-lien (), a Taiwan National University professor of history.

Wang referred to the TBS committees explanation that Chen Tsui-lien was unsuitable because she conducts research into the 228 Incident, resulting in strife between Taiwans various ethnic groups.

The TBS governing board is in charge of the state-funded Taiwan Public Television Service, which together with its affiliated state television networks braodcasts in Hoklo (commonly known as Taiwanese), Hakka and other indigenous languages, showing the people with this decision that it does not have the public interest in mind and is hypocritical, he said.

The rejection also rejects the current transitional process, Wang said.

Comments will be moderated. Keep comments relevant to the article. Remarks containing abusive and obscene language, personal attacks of any kind or promotion will be removed and the user banned. Final decision will be at the discretion of the Taipei Times.

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Party, groups say Taipei indulging conservatives -

Within minutes of the leaking of the draft opinion from the US Supreme Court calling for the overturning of Roe v. Wade, Elizabeth Constance, a reproductive endocrinologist at the Heartland Center for Reproductive Medicine in Omaha, Nebraska, was inundated with messages on social media from concerned patients. What does this mean for the embryos I have frozen, they asked her. What does it mean for the egg retrieval I have planned? Our patients are really afraid, says Constance.

Should Roe v. Wade, the 1973 case which ruled that the right to abortion in the US is protected by the Constitution, be rolled back, the repercussions will be swift, and they will be devastating. And the realities of a post-Roe world will likely not stop at abortion bans. Many more frontiers of reproductive health are in peril, legal experts and bioethicists warn.

The most immediate concern, says Sean Tipton, chief advocacy, policy, and development officer of the American Society of Reproductive Medicine, is that a lot of states use language in their laws that would give legal and constitutional status to the fertilized egg should Roe be overturned. At the moment, 13 states in the US have trigger laws in place that would ban all or nearly all abortions immediately or very quickly if Roe were overturned, according to the Guttmacher Institute, an abortion-rights advocacy and research group. In many of these laws, life is defined as beginning at the moment of fertilization, although the exact language differs from state to state.

By this definition, any procedure involving the destruction of a fertilized egg is at risk of being outlawed if Roe v. Wade is overturneda fertilized egg would theoretically hold the same rights as a kindergartner. This is the manifestation of the personhood movement, propagated by pro-lifers, which seeks to define fertilized eggs, zygotes, embryos, and fetuses as people with equal protections under the law. It is a clear and present danger to all forms of reproductive health care, Tipton says.

Not only does such terminology outlaw abortion, it could jeopardize access to certain forms of birth control, such as intrauterine devices, as well as emergency contraception like Plan B. This is because these forms of contraception are considered by some anti-abortion advocates to be abortifacientssubstances that induce abortionwhen interpreting life as beginning at fertilization. (This is despite IUDs and emergency contraception largely preventing pregnancy by stopping eggs from being fertilized or from being released, respectively, rather than interacting with eggs after fertilization.) It could also impair access to assisted reproductive therapy, namely IVF.

Roes fall could be the opportunity seized upon by pro-life politicians to push for further restrictions, warns Seema Mohapatra, a law professor specializing in health law and reproductive justice at Southern Methodist University in Texas. Any state that has been on the forefront of anti-abortion legislation, we can expect to have these ancillary types of laws passed, she says. That includes large swathes of states in the Midwest and the South. Even if up until now they havent been active, this is really going to empower statesand, cynically, politicians that want to get attentionto be focusing on these issues.

Continued here:
Roe v. Wades Fall Could Threaten Birth Control and IVF Access - WIRED

WASHINGTON, D.C. Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC) today introduced the Promoting Healthier Lifelong Improvements in Food and Exercise Act, or the LIFE Act, to encourage exercise and healthy eating habits nationwide. The bill would provide $25 million to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to combat obesity and sedentary lifestyles in three ways: conducting national education campaigns about how to recognize and address overweight and obesity; training health professionals to recognize the signs of obesity early and to educate people concerning healthy lifestyles; and developing intervention strategies to be used in everyday life, such as in the workplace and in community settings. This initial funding would be for a pilot program to develop best practices and give the country a coherent national strategy for combating overweight and obesity.

Reducing overweight and obesity rates has been a priority for Norton in Congress. Although the LIFE Act applies nationally, she notes that the District of Columbia has higher rates than many jurisdictions of conditions related to overweight and obesity, such as Type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, and heart disease.

In her introductory statement, Norton writes: Changes in nutrition are equally critical because more than half of all young people consume too much fat, a factor in the increase of overweight youth. Data also show an increase in unhealthy eating habits for adults and no change in physical activity I urge support for this important bill to mobilize the country before entirely preventable health conditions, which often begin in childhood, overwhelm the nations health care system.

Nortons introductory statement follows.

Statement of Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton on the Introduction of the Promoting Healthier Lifelong Improvements in Food and Exercise Act of 2022

May 10, 2022

Madam Speaker, I rise to introduce the Promoting Healthier Lifelong Improvements in Food and Exercise Act of 2022, or the LIFE Act, which would authorize a national initiative to combat a major health problem in the United States that cannot be remedied through the health care system alone. Increasing rates of overweight and obesity are found among Americans of every age, race and major demographic group, and threaten the health of Americans like no other condition or disease. In fact, the key to eliminating many of the most serious health conditions is not only to reduce overweight and obesity, but also to encourage exercise of all kinds.

This bill would provide $25 million to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) for a coordinated national effort to reverse increasingly sedentary lifestyles and diets that are high in fat and sugar. Specifically, this bill would require the CDC to establish the first national strategy to combat the overweight and obesity epidemic. The CDC, either directly or through grants to states and local organizations, would train health professionals to recognize the signs of overweight and obesity early in order to educate Americans about proper nutrition and regular exercise; conduct public education campaigns about how to recognize and address overweight and obesity; and develop intervention strategies for use in everyday life, such as in the workplace and community settings.

The National Survey of Childrens Health found that 16.2 percent of children ages 10 to 17 had obesity in 2019-2020. The CDC National Center for Health Statistics reports that Type 2 Diabetes, once considered an adult disease, is now widespread among children. The rising cost of the health care system, including insurance premiums, reflects this epidemic. Today, chronic diseases, many of which are caused or exacerbated by overweight and obesity, account for 70 percent of all deaths in the U.S. and 75 percent of U.S. medical care costs, according to the National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion. A focused national health initiative would provide guidance to state and local governments to engage in similar programs

A national focus could lead to changes, such as greater participation in high school physical education classes, which dropped from 42 percent in 1991 to 23 percent in 2020, according to the Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System. Changes in nutrition are equally critical because more than half of all young people consume too much fat, a factor in the increase of overweight youth. Data also show an increase in unhealthy eating habits for adults and no change in physical activity.

To cite an example of the need for action, the District of Columbia is one of the fittest cities in the U.S., according to a 2019 study by the American College of Sports Medicine, yet, even here, obesity continues to be a severe problem. Approximately one-fifth of District residents are considered obese. Most of the obesity epidemic is exercise- and food-related.

I urge support for this important bill to mobilize the country before entirely preventable health conditions, which often begin in childhood, overwhelm the nations health care system.

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Excerpt from:
Norton Introduces Bill to Establish National Effort to Promote Healthy Lifestyles through Nutrition and Exercise - House.gov

For Immediate Release: Wednesday, May 11, 2022Contact: media@prochoiceamerica.org

Washington, DC Today, once again, Republicans in the U.S. Senate blocked the advancement of the Womens Health Protection Act (WHPA). This critical bill would safeguard the legal right to abortion throughout the United States, which is more important than ever after a leaked draft majority opinion revealed that the U.S. Supreme Court is poised to soon overturn Roe v. Wade. Every Republican in the Senate voted against advancing WHPA and protecting our fundamental rights.

NARAL Pro-Choice America President Mini Timmaraju released the following statement in response:

Today, Republicans in the Senate once again failed the American people. The recently leaked draft decision made clear that the Supreme Court is poised to overturn Roe v. Wade and underscored how urgent our fight to protect reproductive freedom isbut these out-of-touch lawmakers simply do not care. Instead of safeguarding our fundamental rights, Republican senators have once again abdicated their responsibility.

We are grateful to Leader Schumer and Democratic leadership for bringing this vote to the floor and to every senator who voted in support of this critical bill. Thank you for recognizing the importance of this moment and for stepping up to protect our freedom to make our own decisions about our lives, families, and futures. We know that these cruel bans and restrictions on abortion most harm those who already face barriers to accessing the care they needincluding women; Black, Indigenous, and people of color; those working to make ends meet; LGBTQ+ people; immigrants; young people; those living in rural communities; and people with disabilities. We must take action to fight back.

We have a message for the lawmakers who blocked this bill and refused to fight for our freedoms and our families: Voters will remember who showed up for them at this moment of crisis and who chose to walk away. Well see you at the ballot box.

The Womens Health Protection Act (WHPA) would safeguard the federal right to abortion across the country, even if Roe v. Wade falls. This legislation would create a right for healthcare providers to provide abortion care and a corresponding right for people to receive that care, free from bans and medically unnecessary restrictions that single out abortion and block access. In September, the U.S. House of Representatives passed WHPA in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Courts refusal to block Texas vigilante-enforced abortion ban (SB 8). Shortly before the House vote, the White House issued a Statement of Administration Policy in support of this critical legislation. Republicans in the U.S. Senate first blocked the advancement of the Womens Health Protection Act in February.

The fate of Roe v. Wade is in the hands of the anti-choice supermajority on the Supreme Courtand the recently leaked draft Court opinion confirmed that the Court is poised to overturn the landmark abortion rights case when it rules in Dobbs v. Jackson Womens Health Organization in the coming weeks. The case concerns Mississippis 15-week abortion ban and directly challenges Roe. If the Court upholds Mississippis ban, it will end the constitutional right to abortion recognized by Roe, and states will take swift action to ban abortion. Should Roe fall, 28 states would likely take action to prohibit abortion outright. Of those, 13 states already have trigger bans in place, which would ban abortion automatically if Roe is overturned.

As abortion rights and access face threats from state legislatures to the Supreme Court, NARAL Pro-Choice America is ramping up its work to elect candidates across the country during a critical moment in the fight for reproductive freedom. Recently, NARAL Pro-Choice America, Planned Parenthood Action Fund, and EMILYs List, announced a plan to collectively spend a historic $150 million on the 2022 midterms to ensure the election of reproductive freedom champions up and down the ballot. While each will run its own electoral programs with their own advocacy and political organizations, the announcement represents a united effort to aggressively respond to the unprecedented attacks on reproductive freedom across the country and raise voters awareness of the lawmakers who are to blame.

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For over 50 years, NARAL Pro-Choice America has fought to protect and advance reproductive freedom at the federal and state levelsincluding access to abortion care, birth control, pregnancy and post-partum care, and paid family leavefor every body. NARAL is powered by its more than 2.5 million members from every state and congressional district in the country, representing the 8 in 10 Americans who support legal abortion.

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NARAL Pro-Choice America Condemns Senate Republicans for Blocking Advancement of the Women's Health Protection Act - NARAL Pro-Choice America