EDMONTON — Former members of an elite Alberta wildfire-fighting crew say government budget cuts have left the province battling its current blazes short-handed. “We could have been difference-makers,” said Jordan Erlandson, a former member of Alberta’s Rapattack team. Those firefighters were trained to rappel from helicopters to get at wildfires while they still only covered […]

LONDON (AP) — The breathtaking development of artificial intelligence has dazzled users by composing music, creating images and writing essays, while also raising fears about its implications. Even European Union officials working on groundbreaking rules to govern the emerging technology were caught off guard by AI’s rapid rise. The 27-nation bloc proposed the Western world’s […]

COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — South Carolina Republicans are pushing new abortion restrictions in a late attempt to curtail access after a near-total ban failed last month. A Senate bill that would ban abortion except in the earliest weeks of pregnancy is moving quickly through the South Carolina House in the first sign that Republican leaders […]

HELENA, Mont. (AP) — Two transgender children, their parents and two health care providers filed a lawsuit Tuesday arguing that a Montana law that would ban gender-affirming care for transgender youth is unconstitutional. The ban on puberty blockers, hormone treatment and surgical procedures applies only to transgender youth being treated for gender dysphoria, but that […]

A man charged with providing banned substances to Nigerian sprinter Blessing Okagbare and another athlete pleaded guilty Monday, marking the first conviction under a landmark U.S. law designed to target wide-ranging doping schemes across the globe. Eric Lira pleaded guilty for his role in helping Olympic athletes obtain performance-enhancing substances before the Tokyo Olympics in […]

FIPA will always maintain and recognize that timeliness is a core performance measure in freedom of information. Access delayed is access denied.  We also feel the need to avoid the insanity of repeating the same actions and expecting different results. Timeliness is not the only factor.  Our fundamental question: How do we evaluate the performance […]

For the past 30 years. FIPA’s advocacy has focused on the timeliness of the freedom of information process. We have been informed by the belief that access delayed is access denied. Unfortunately, little has changed or improved. Governments fail to meet deadlines, civil society and users complain, the next verse is the same as the […]

Quadra Island resident Carol Woolsey had the misfortune to experience a medical emergency in her rural community last month after the last ferry had sailed for the night. After developing searing pain in her lower abdomen, the 77-year-old and her cousin called 911 around 10 p.m. on April 2. Disoriented by pain and vomiting constantly […]

A Canadian forestry professor’s critical views on a controversial herbicide were not the reason he was fired, but nonetheless, his termination was unjust, a judge has ruled. Rod Cumberland, previously employed at the Maritime College of Forest Technology in New Brunswick, was fired from his post in 2019 after creating “a toxic atmosphere” at the […]

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — The former chief security officer for Uber was sentenced to probation Thursday for trying to cover up a 2016 data breach in which hackers accessed tens of millions of customer records from the ride-hailing service. Joseph Sullivan was sentenced to a three-year term of probation and ordered to pay a fine […]

JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — Former Mississippi Gov. Phil Bryant on Thursday released what he said were all of his text and email messages related to a welfare fraud investigation — including money spent on building a university volleyball arena that was pushed by NFL Hall of Famer Brett Favre. The 436 pages of messages had […]

Courts this week blocked abortion restrictions from taking effect in two states, while lawmakers in a third are forging ahead with a plan for a new ban that’s less stringent than most. Those are some of the latest developments in an abortion landscape that is being crafted by lawmakers, governors and courts across the country […]